Donations given
22 December 2015
After a long period of time (sorry it has taken this long) the recipient of the donations is Teisi Pugava. Teisi was the most affected person in the Solomons with the floods. Her husband and 3 grandchildren were drowned when the torrent that was the Matiniko River washed away the family home - with the husband and children in it.
Teisi arrived to see their house being carried down the river but was powerless to do anything about it. The bodies were eventually recovered and so at least Teisi was able put her loved ones to rest. I first spoke to Teisi last year about helping her out with rebuilding.
I was a bit hesitant as there was the possibility of government flood relief funding - but this came to nothing. Now she has started rebuilding I arranged for the total donation of NZD$2124 to go to Teisi as certainly she is a worthy cause. The way I did this was to lodge the funds with a reputable hardware store in Honiara (called Tongs).
The money is in the form of a credit note (this is scanned and uploaded to the gallery) so she can charge building materials to it either as 1 purchase or progressively. In Solomons dollars the donations converted to SBD$11,471.79. Doing it this way helps ensure that the donation to her is spent wisely.
Soon after the floods I looked at ways that the donated funds could best be spent to help. I talked to Rotary and looked at what World Vision and Oxfam were doing. They were helping with immediate assistance as opposed to helping people get back on their feet. I thought best to help one person alot rather than many people with a little.
Anyway, I think the donated $ have been well spent - certainly Teisi was quite emotional about it and told me that she will send an email for me to distribute to the people who donated (I generated for her a list from the givealittle site) and I will upload it here and email it on where I know email addresses.
There is a photo of Teisi here holding the credit note
There is reference to Teisi and her family in these newsclips:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/9904690/Solomon-Islands-floods-sweep-away-people
http://keithquinnrugby.com/home/solomon-islands-rugby-tragedy/
Neil McCarthy Dec 2015