New Zealand Funds Help HFH Fiji Build Home For Disabled Man

Wheelchair-bound Former Taxi Driver Thankful For Habitat House Which Allows Him To Move Easily

In his new home, Mataiasi Tuivuna can have easy access to the toilet and bathroom.

SUVA, 14th January 2011: Former taxi driver Mataiasi Tuivuna originally applied to Habitat for Humanity Fiji to have his former home modified after his legs were amputated due to diabetes.

HFH Fiji recommended instead building a new house in Matanisivaro settlement in Lami town, Rewa province, northwest of the capital Suva.

According to HFH Fiji’s Losalini Tuwere, Tuivuna originally applied to Habitat to have his existing home adapted to accommodate his wheelchair.

“Following inspections of Mr Tuivuna’s property, we found that the land was not suitable and a new home needed to be built on an alternate site,” Tuwere told local newspaper, The Fiji Times.

Tuivuna’s new house was recently completed with funds from Lions Club District 202k and Lloyd Morgan Lions Clubs Charitable Trust New Zealand.

Lions Club Zone chairman (Fiji Islands), Carl Perrin, told The Fiji Times that they raised about US18,000 in New Zealand for the project.

Forty-eight-year-old Tuivana, who has been confined to a wheelchair for the past four years, is pleased with his new house which allows him to move easily.

“We used to live in a house on the other side of the hill in the settlement and it was very hard for me to go to the toilet and bathroom in my wheelchair and it was hard on my family too,” he said.

When he moved into his new home recently, he said: “I am so happy today because we have been helped by such kind people.”