Jason Chuei expertly captures our volunteering experience at Koroipita in July 2019, a social outreach program established by Expedia Group staff in Australia. Read on to learn more about Koroipita, Fiji & what you can expect from a volunteering experience.
We ventured South to the Pacific Island paradise of Fiji. Known for it’s perfect white sandy beaches, mesmerising sunset hues, and some of the friendliest people on our Earth, this picturesque destination is lesser known for it’s deep history of colonialism and slavery, modern day cultural anguish, and an incredible 28% of the population living below the poverty line.
Hence, ten Expedians and four of our travel industry partners from Fiji Airways and Rosie Holidays, embarked on a Social Outreach Program to the island of Viti Levu in Fiji, to help a local man-made town by the name of Koroipita, where 1,100 underprivileged locals currently reside, in 241 houses. The town’s name was derived from it’s founding father, Peter (koroi = town; pita = a localised Fijian version of the name Peter), who first established this self-sufficient residential ecosystem 18 years ago. The wise story-loving older gentleman, who’s early career was in forestry and shipping, had now dedicated his life to building this remarkable fully-functioning town, fully kitted out with a school, health clinic, sewage system, and even a recycling centre!
Now a model template for sustainable urban drift housing, the town has received funding from the likes of NZ Aid and more recently the Fijian government. Land is leased on a 99-year basis from local native tribes, and residents pay $9 per week in rent to help cover the cost of the land and the staff who help manage the community, including the 28 trades people who construct further housing.
Provision of housing is upon needs-analysis application, with 7,500 people applying each year. The town is split into 18 blocks of 10-15 houses, and block leaders act as tribal leaders to manage, voice and counsel their block’s needs. 16 out of the 18 block leaders are women.
Each family is educated to become self-sufficient in root crop and vegetable growing, and the town itself produces a surplus of food, which is sold to local market vendors, providing sustainable income for the family. The town also has an active bee farm, producing 700kg of honey per year, also sold, providing a source of income.
This trip was organised by a good friend and Expedia Group legend, Sam, a vivacious and warm-hearted young lady, passionate and enthusiastic about life, who oversees the Pacific Island region. She is a kind soul who cares about the community and her team, who have become her close family and her own community. The other Expedians on this trip were part of this family, managing the vastly beautiful neighbouring islands, including the once-in-a-lifetime destinations of Vanuatu, The Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Solomon Islands and Bora Bora.
A group of caring Expedians had pioneered the relationship with Model Towns Charitable Trust, the charity that oversees the town’s operations and funding, five years ago, and a few had ventured to Fiji to help build houses back then. Although some time had passed, the team had kept in touch, and with Sam and the team’s inspiration and initiative, we hope to relaunch this Program as a long-term partnership to continue to support the underprivileged Fijian community.
We all arrived in Lautoka late afternoon on a gloomy Saturday, light rain drizzling, grey clouds hanging over our heads, but sparse enough to see the spectacular not-so-distant mountainous views, full of lush green vegetation. Small industrial areas that housed flour mills, construction machinery, and piles of damp pine chips that created speckled-brown mounds of wood, lined the single carriage highway, along with several construction sites, small supermarkets, and an amazingly competitive five different brands of gas stations! Our own accommodation was a simple, pleasant water-facing property, seemingly quite popular with local Fijians judging by the enthusiastic if not slightly overzealous wedding gathering that was being prepared for, and that carried on into the early hours of the follow morning.
We settled into our rooms, then met our host for the next few days, Peter, the aforementioned founding father. He jumped straight into a safety briefing, outlining how to properly and efficiently position and nail steel strapping, some things to be aware of, and some first aid-requiring anecdotal examples, including ‘Bigfoot’, the nail magnet, who managed to stick his foot upon a nail on four separate occasions. Peter also informed us of some terrifying statistics, where 63,000 die on construction sites worldwide each day! Perhaps to keep us on our toes, perhaps because he just loves telling stories.
We then headed a few hundred metres up the hill for some local culinary delights including a Fijian Indian chicken curry - around 40% of the Fijian population are of Indian descent, brought over from colonial days for manual labour, but remaining and now becoming part of the societal fabric, often excelling and overtaking locals in the business sector - and interestingly, chow mein! Meanwhile, the Fiji and All Blacks game and the Pacific Games closing ceremony were simultaneously playing in the background, causing some jovial raucousness, mostly from the rugby-loving Fijians, rather than any track-and-field enthusiasts.
The next day we met for an early breakfast before the bus from our local travel partner, Rosie Holidays, arrived, inclusive of a few staff members who also had a passion for community impact, and transported us to the nearby Koroipita. We were met by Peter and the community’s General Manager, Ranjini, a happy and loyal lady, who had worked with Koroipita for ten years.
We 4x4’ed around the neatly gravelled roads touring a small section of the 50-acre premises. Being a Sunday, with Fijian winter chills of 20 degrees Celsius, few residents had dared to leave the comforts and warmth of their homes, some households being warmer than others with up to an astounding ten family members living under one roof.
The town is a remarkable economic and societal phenomenon, and we all gasped at the immensity and almost audacity of the idea let alone the implementation of it. We then traversed down the hill to our work site for the next few days, a sizeable plot of land that was to house 22 new hurricane-proof homes; we were tasked with helping to build one, or at least part of one, during our time there. With our carpentry and engineering skills consisting entirely of badly assembled Ikea furniture (several stories of backward-facing doors, headrests and other components were passed around!), we weren’t entirely hopeful of what we would be able to achieve. However, with our collective passion and gusto, we jumped straight in, merging forces with the few residential workmen, who helped guide us on what needed to be done. We could sense their unease and silent frustration at our ineptness, but we were determined to help and hopefully prove
them wrong.
The concrete foundation had already been laid, and so we started with building the flooring for the house, nailing in steel straps to hold in place the sturdy beams that would form the base of the entire structure. Long flat pieces of interconnecting wood were then placed on top of these beams, which we enthusiastically nailed down, forming beautiful panelled flooring. Our hammers rose and fell in unison, creating a symphony of metal on metal as our tools smashed down on the tiny yet unimaginably strong silver rods. A surprisingly involved task that took all morning, but understandable given we had to place a few hundred nails across the matrix of wooden slats.
After a sumptuous lunch of filled rotis, we pushed on and started to build the frames that would become the walls of the house. The house itself consisted of one main bedroom and living room combined, then a secondary adjacent structure where the kitchen, shower and toilet were to be situated. Thus, there were eight outer walls to contend with, plus a few more inner walls to separate the more private areas of the space. Thinking the floor nailing was difficult, we were soon to learn this was nothing compared to framing, which required large nails and multiple thick pieces of lumber, carefully linked together to form structurally sound load-bearing walls. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but had completed the four walls of the main room, which lay on each respective side of the foundation ready to be erected the next day.
Tiredly, we made our way over to the multi-purpose sports court, where the local children played an array of sports including netball, soccer and volleyball. As part of the program, we wanted to interact and engage with some of the community, to get to know the people we were trying to help, and for them to experience a little bit of another culture too.
We were first greeted with a delightful and warm welcome Fijian “meke” dance by half a dozen of the community’s youths, intricately decorated with white shirts and green floral ornaments, all performed entirely on the floor through fully utilising their arms and upper body to create undulating waves of rhythmic motions, all in sync with the beats of the local instruments being played by their friends and family behind them.
We had been challenged to a game of netball with the high school aged children, and the apparent tactic had been to exhaust us with a long day of manual labour. After a light warm-up involving Zumba with three generations of locals participating alongside our team, with a gaggle of giggling spectators, mostly laughing at the impressively coordinated moves of the 6’ 4” member of our team, we then jumped into the game. Most of our team had never played netball before, and were quite unaware of the rules, but a newfound energy came across the group, rising from the intrinsic competitiveness that the Expedians seem to have.
The Koroipita team were a well oiled and nimble machine, making quick passes and abiding by all the rules, impressive by any standards, let alone by a team the majority of which were barefoot! Meanwhile, the referees were somewhat lenient with the visiting team, again perhaps part of their hospitable and caring nature, making their guests happy. It was an extremely close match, with the score tied at 9-9 with 60 seconds to go. As the final play was set in motion, our fearless captain, Sam, received the ball and made the final shot of victory.
Almost immediately after the game had finished, a sense of ungratefulness came across us, especially when we learnt the local team had been practicing for our arrival. However, we did later learn that the referees and the team themselves had let us win, so we understood why our lack of skills and relatively older bones had managed to win.
We returned to the hotel semi-victorious and quickly bee-lined to our showers for a much needed cleansing. That evening, we relaxed, deflated and debriefed over too much pizza and a (competitive) few hands of cards, before a restful night’s sleep ready for the next day’s labour ahead.
We arrived at the town early the next morning, with spectacular blue skies overhead, and first went for a visit to the “kindy” (Australian short form of kindergarten), to see the facilities which is producing top-ranked national students. 20 or so children aged 5-6 years old, who happily answered some maths questions and sang colourful songs to us, impressively remembering every word and tune. Incredibly, 100% of students pass the school curriculum, and 750 students from Koroipita have now graduated high school, with many also going on to university education to achieve better lives for themselves and their families.
Back at the work site, the walls were going up, and we continued to build the frames for the secondary structure. The professional workmen had become much more trusting and engaged with us, apparently being an efficient group compared to other volunteers, and so we were given more autonomous tasks to complete. We were aware that they could easily build the house without our “help”, and although we know volunteerism helps build awareness and helps with fundraising endeavours, Peter also informed us that after decades of following this formulaic building procedure, they appreciated the assistance and company; further, the highly repetitive and relatively easy job of linear nailing is novel for us, but helped alleviate some of the workload for them as well.
“Strapping” had become our favourite and most useful contribution, where long strips of steel with multiple nail holes along it’s length, were to be applied parallel to each joint of the structure to ensure it’s integrity and longevity. The “strappers” worked well in tandem with “framers”, and we came together to raise each wall, culminating in elation each time a wall rose to reach it’s final destination. By the end of the work day, we had securely established all walls, external and internal, and had started to help place the rafters across the walls forming the first part of the roof.
Happy with our day’s efforts, we headed up to the community hall and meeting room, where we were provided an in-depth history of the Koroipita project, including 30 year old images of life back then, of families living in dire circumstances, the commencement and evolution of the model town, and a sense of the past and future interactions with governmental and international agencies.
This fascinating talk was followed by a resplendent Fijian vegetarian buffet, all prepared by two Koroipita resident mothers. Quoted by the frequent visitors in our team as being the best meal they’ve ever had in Fiji! We were all exhausted by the time we returned to the hotel, but managed to squeeze in a couple of drinks and a quick game of cards again, before retiring for the evening.
Our final day was met with further glorious sunshine, and we immediately got stuck into more strapping, as well as painting the inner structure to both make it more aesthetically appealing and to protect the wood from nature’s course. Suddenly the roofing appeared, and was nailed into place in record time. A bright yellow door also appeared and, after some mechanical adjustments, was hung up, and the place immediately felt more colourful and homely (despite still having no walls). In the afternoon, the distinctive blue-coloured corrugated steel wall panels had started to be placed around the structure, and the main section of the house was near completion.
A remarkable and brilliant hands-on and engaging trip, with the wonderful and formidable Expedia Group Pacific Island family, a loving and compassionate community in themselves, bringing their joviality and hearts to this incredible town, allowing thousands of underprivileged Fijians prosper for generations to come.