Model Towns Charitable Trust
BUILDING HOMES REBUILDING LIVES
1
Donors
$100
Raised so far
$15,000
Fund Raising Goal
In March, 2014 I had the privilege, as a guest of Peter Drysdale, of visiting Koripita (Village of Peter), a small town just outside Fiji’s second biggest city, Lautoka, home to some of the country’s poorest people.
The Trust is committed to building engineered and serviced subdivisions and cyclone – safe houses and providing guidance and support for the advancement of poor families. The Model Towns prescription offers important solutions for managing rural/urban drift and for the resettlement of climate change and other refugees. Cost effective safe housing and family advancement in a clean and green environment.
Community Links: Rosie Holidays Koroipita Comunity Project — Fijivillage.com
Koripita is the home of about 1,000 people living in comfortable 2-roomed houses with amenities, located near Lautoka, Fiji. Conceived, developed and maintained by Peter Drysdale and his loyal crew, including residents, and many overseas volunteers, Koripita is a life giving community and an outstanding model of how a good quality of life can be provided for such large numbers of under-privileged people.
I’m in awe of what Peter has achieved here with very limited resources. Financial support is provided by the New Zealand Government and Rotary in Australia (Tasmania), and input from Habitat.
To see it is to believe it! 120 individual 2-room homes with two sections separated by a breezeway, with one containing two bedrooms, and the other a kitchen, shower and toilet. All buildings are connected to an efficient environment friendly sewer system and the area has deep concrete culverts running alongside the well constructed internal roads to carry away heavy rainfall.
A workshop on site builds the basic metal frames for the foundation and walls of houses and a ‘coffin’, as Peter refers to it, contains everything a team needs to assemble each home, right down to the last nut and bolt! Lo and behold any team that gets to the end of building a house and still has a screw left in the ‘coffin’ – such is the detailed planning that has gone into constructing these dwellings.
Each home has a wood burning stove built and perfected by Peter over many years. Wood for the stoves, along with small teiteis and other rich vegetation provide food for the tenants and for bartering with other villagers. Rental is set at FJD$1 (AUD$0.60) per day.
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