Thanks a Million to all you fantastic people out there that have been contributing to help the people of Samoa that were affected by the Tsunami on September 29. We have received packages after packages with cloths and cooking items plus money that was transferred directly to our account.
It has kept us really busy to deliver everything that was coming in. Yesterday we had a big shopping day to buy everything that we thought were most important to the affected families.
So far we received 3000 Tala that we decided to use for kerosene stoves, plates, pots and pans.
All this went to the village of Saanapu which was affected by the tsunami. The main focus of the tsunami help has been on the South East coast as it was the area that was affected most allthough many other places like Saanapu on the South West coast were badly damaged as well.
All the families send their sincere thanks to you people for making a difference in their lives.
With great help from outside, the government has put together a help plan for the ones that lost everything. These people will get a new small house built for their family. The total cost for each house will be about 7000 US Dollar.
I am looking forward to keep informing you about the progress of the rebuilding of the lives of the Samoan people.
I love Samoa i espically have big love for the people of this wonderful nation, but what angers me is the government of Samoa . The amount of money which was donated from Australia and New Zealand alone would be well into the millions however from what i witnessed in the last couple of months since the tsunami i am left wondering and asking myself where has all the millions if dollars in donations gone too? dont get me wrong i was in Samoa and witnessed the clearing of all the rubble by the trucks and bulldozers whom were slowly making there way village by village, i was also still in Samoa during the time the government passed the notion and announced their plans on how much money they would be giving to the families who lost loved ones during the disaster, and to my calculations the government would still have had millions of dollars in donations remaining. But I would like to see both the Australian and New Zealand governments ask the Samoan government for a statement showing the millions of dollars of donations was being used and whether the money WAS USED to help the tsunami victims and tsunami stricken villages or not.
I am just concerned on whether the money was received by the victims and used to help all the villages struck by the tsunami and not stuffed once again into the pockets of the cabinets and leaders of Samoa
Hi,
Thank you for your comments regarding the tsunami help from New Zealand and Australia. Your questions are very relevant and I hope that we will get some clarity about where the money is gone soon.
Mats