Serious Offer To Help Not Just Bs

[Nignoy]

I was approached yesterday,by a very reputable Australian company ,who would like to donate material aid, in the form of prefabricated building sections ,to outlying or isolated coastal villages, who are at the end of the aid chain.They have approached major aid organisations but have not been impressed with their response , so they asked me to see if I could get them any contact or addresses, this is not a sales pitch or a con!! but a genuine offer of free help from a small company at ground level so to speak, So would be grateful for all the information I can get, Nignoy

[Peewee]

Frankly, and regretably, you are going to find this difficult to do.

Trying to help with building houses of any kind is always going to be hazardouse in one way or another. The main problem is the official entitlement of the land the house is going to be put on and this needs legal and official local goverment intervention. Many destroyed houses were built on land which has been used by villages for generations but this would not seemingly count for too much when considering if the house can be rebuilt on the same locations as before. Some authorities are taking this 'opportunity' to assess where the local pople should be located and the feeling is that this is not always best for them to be where they used to be as much coastal land is 'valuable'.

From a financial point of view there would be a lot of assistance for the villagers to help them build new housing if some of these issue could be made clearer and so your work and investigation is important.

Through aid work recently I have found that the only sure way to know that what you are giving ends up being used by the people you are directing it to is to do it directly. Dealing with the villagers directly through their head men is proabable the best way - naturally you have to go there to do that. To be responsable you would also need to consult with a legal expert to make sure that the villagers were protected should any dwellings be built - the last thing you would want is for them to be told after a few years that they have no right to be there and that thier home had to come down or that they had to be moved out due to arguments about land title.

Visit my website for further info;

Thailands Tsunami

Please let us know how you get on as many of us are looking for ways to help with housing.