Skål International Suva President, Annemarie de Vos presented a cheque for $2400 to Wananavu Beach Resort General Manager and Skål International Suva member Mr Allan Carter for the post Tropical Cyclone Winston Staff Appeal.
The donation was made up of various amounts from Skål Port Vila Club in Vanuatu, Skål International Suva members and an anonymous hotel guest donation through de Vos on the Park Hotel.
Allan said “As we all know in February 2016, Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest cyclone to ever make landfall in Fiji, tore through Rakiraki leaving behind a wake of destruction.”
“While Wananavu Beach Resort was spared any major damage, many of our staff’s homes in the villages were not so lucky. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, however, several staff have lost their entire home, many need major repairs, and almost all have been without power or running water since that night.”
“We have been asking for donations to help rebuild homes in the villages and provide much needed assistance to our staff. 100% of the funds received will go directly to our staff and the rebuild process.”
“As General Manager of the resort, I have seen first hand the destruction of Tropical Cyclone Winston, and wish to provide my friendly staff the assistance they so desperately need.”
“This donation will go a long way to assist us to rebuild homes in the villages and provide much needed assistance to our staff. Vinaka vaka levu to Skål International Suva for this help.”
For more information contact
Mr Stuart Gow
Vice President (PR & Media)
Skål International Suva
Skål Club # 684
m: 679-997-5416
About Skål International
Skål is a professional organisation of tourism leaders around the world, promoting global tourism and friendship. It is the only international group uniting all branches of the travel and tourism industry.
About Wananavu Staff Rebuild Fund on GoFundMe
On 20 February 2016, Tropical Cyclone Winston, the strongest cyclone to ever make landfall in Fiji, tore through Rakiraki leaving behind a wake of destruction. Our beautiful Wananavu Beach Resort was spared any major damage, but many of our staff’s homes in the villages were not so lucky. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, however, several staff have lost their entire home, many need major repairs, and almost all have been without power or running water since that night.
Wananavu Staff Rebuild Fund
We are asking for donations to help rebuild homes in the villages and provide much needed assistance to our staff. 100% of the funds received will go directly to our staff and the rebuild process. As General Manager of the resort, I have seen first hand the destruction of Tropical Cyclone Winston, and wish to provide my friendly staff the assistance they so desperately need.
We will be posting updates of photos and personal stories of our staff to show where your donations will be going. We extend a huge ‘vinaka vakalevu’ (thank you very much) in advance!
Update 1 : April 2016
After having the chance to sit down with some of the staff and hear their stories, I would like to share some of them with you:
If you have been to Wananavu, chances are you’ve met our security guard Jovilisi. Joe is one of our friendliest staff members who generally makes an effort to talk to everyone. Joe came into the resort on his day off to help us secure our buildings.
When he returned home after work, his neighbors began calling out to him to help them board up their house. The winds had already started picking up so much by then, that when Joe took his shoes off to enter the neighbor’s house, they immediately blew away! Joe stayed and tried to help board up the doors and windows but the wind was too strong to fight against.
He ended up taking a rope and tying the sliding glass doors down so they wouldn’t break. Once the heaviest winds had started, it took no more than 3 minutes for the roof to blow away. He went into the other room where he found a young boy staring up at the sky where the roof used to be.
The older lady who lived in the house wanted to run, but Joe knew she would either get hurt by flying debris or blow away in the wind herself. So they stayed. When the winds began to slow, Joe took his neighbors across to his house.
When he got there, he saw his roof was gone and heard his family call out to him from another neighbor’s house where they had gone during the storm. But the worst was not yet over. The winds began again in the opposite direction and everyone knew that had just been the eye of the storm. 5 families huddled together for the next few hours while the storm grew in intensity.
Thankfully, no one was injured and were all able to crawl out of their hiding places the next morning to assess the damage. When Joe returned to his house, he saw that everything was gone from his room.
Over the next few hours he began looking for his things and found his mattress across the road, his security uniform 3 houses down, and the rest of his belongings strewn about the street.
After a few days of cleaning, Joe returned to the resort where he is now back to being our smiling security guard, but the work at home continues.