Sujit
and Simon Peter
“Project
Happy Home” 14 - 21 January 2006\
Pink gloves,
Wet & Forget mould killer, Sugar Soap, Jif, squeegee
mops, a lot of elbow grease, Fiji Sevens, the blood, the
sweat, the laughter (and the tears at the end) of all
the volunteers from NZ, OZ, US and the UK saw a tired
old house with great ‘bones’ transform into
a beautiful happy home. The locals joined in and have
continued on with the renovation work now nearing completion.
Freshly painted inside with a beautiful new kitchen, new
bathrooms, and the furnishing underway, Sujit and Simon
Peter will be the first of many boys to move into the
happy home.
Thank
you to all of you who supported this makeover project
in body and in spirit – The home now established
at 17 Richards Rd is because of you.
Thank you to Hon. Adi Asenaca Caucau, Minister
for Women, Social Welfare & Poverty Alleviation, for
initiating and believing in this wonderful project.
We appreciate your continued support – this is just
the beginning of the Happy Home story.
The
formal opening of the Happy Home will be on March 23rd
at 5.30pm
We would love you to join us, along with the Prime Minister,
Minister Caucau and other guests. If you can come please
let us know.
For
those of you who live in NZ – Check out this week’s
New Idea magazine which has an article about Elizabeth
and Sujit - “My love for the chicken boy”
I
am updating the “PHH” email database. Please
would you reply to me by clicking onto my email address
below, writing your email address first (see below) and
then your name. Also if you do not wish to be on the mailing
list please let me know. Thank you.
opieclan@ihug.co.nz
Lesley Opie
Website:
www.fijilive.com/sujitkumar
17
Richards Rd, Domain, Suva, Fiji Islands.
To
renovate a beautiful, old, colonial house and provide
a safe, secure, warm and friendly family home for
Sujit Kumar and other children ‘at risk’. It will be a
place where lost boys can have a home.
JOIN
SUJIT & THE BOYS FOR A FUN WORK WEEK!
" Extreme
Make-over " - 14-21 January 2006
We plan to totally fence
the property, clean the home & property, install new
bathrooms, kitchen and to completely rewire and re-do
plumbing of the property.
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| Sujit and Elizabeth at
No 17 Richards Rd. |
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| The
old house has good ‘bones’. |
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Simon
Peter, who will be one of the first boys to live in the 'Happy Home’, has said that
he wants to grow a rose garden in the compound where the
boys could return and marry their sweethearts. To have
a home like the 'Happy Home' makes Simon Peter feel comfortable,
secure, loved and cared for.
Link:
Simon Peter and the Other Boys
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10 year old Simon Peter. |
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“I want to bring my bride back here (to the Happy
Home) to see where I grew up”.
- Simon Peter aged 10 years old
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| Simon Peter
having fun swinging on a vine at No 17 Richards Rd |
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17 Richards Rd, Domain
Suva - Vanayaliyali House:
10th August
2005 - Recollection of the day
The Laminex Group (TLG) NZ representative Myles Opie and
his wife Lesley visited No 17 Richards Rd:
“Walking up the steps of
this old, rambling, colonial house, you could almost
hear the children's voices resounding from the wide,
open windows. Upon entering the house we
knew that this house was the one that needed children
- it just felt right. The solid, dark-oregan floorboards
and the tongue and groove wooden walls with so much history
behind them, would be the perfect place for those children
who needed a loving, safe and secure home”.
Vanayaliyali House is about 80 to 90 years old and was
originally the residence of the wife of one of Fiji’s
great statesmen Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, the late Lady Liku.
Situated on
a serene hilltop at 17 Richards Road in Domain, Suva,
the once quiet and reserved home is to undergo renovations.
The house will be going through an extreme makeover for a totally
different concept - children that are ‘at risk’ between
the ages of eight and 17. It will become a home
for those children who have no home to call their
own.
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August
10th 2005: Sujit with Social Welfare
Minister Adi
Asenaca Caucau,Myles Opie (The
Laminex Group) and Archie Seeto (Chairman of Suva
Rotary Club).
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Although the basic
structure of the house is in good condition, the fundamental
plumbing and wiring all needs redoing, along with a new
kitchen bathroom and laundry. The flooring in places needs
recovering, decking, stairwells, handrails, piping, water
systems and fresh paint inside and out. It is hoped that
the ‘new look happy home’ will be completed and ready for the
boys to move into by March next year.
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Architects: Alec Fatiaki (Fiji) and Mike Sharpley (New Zealand). |
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The Happy Home for children ‘at risk’ to be located at 17
Richards Rd, Suva (3 doors down from the Prime Minister’s
residence), will enable children to live in a protective
and loving environment; where there is professional help,
until they are reunited with their families, fostered,
adopted or until they are sufficiently independent.
Judge
Peter Boshier, Principal Family Court Judge in New Zealand,
resided and worked in Fiji for some months during 2003/2004. He along with local Chief Magistrate, David
Balram, was able to review the unacceptable situation
of accommodation of these young boys at the government’s
Boys' Centre, and was compelled to alert Rotarians in
Fiji and encouraged them to do something about the situation.
As a result, The Rotary Club of Suva took up the cause
last year, as a project.
The Rotary Club of Suva Sujit Foundation (named after Sujit Kumar) was
established in December 2004 by the Rotary Club of Suva.
The R. C. S. is a service Club that was set up in Fiji
in 1936. One of its objectives is to provide for a facility,
including ongoing management, for these children ‘at risk’.
The Sujit Foundation also provides for a safe and caring
environment for Sujit Kumar ‘to be rehabilitated’. The
Sujit Foundation will also provide care for children/juveniles found to be in
abusive and neglectful situations at 17 Richards Rd. The President
of Rotary Club of Suva sits on the Foundation Board.
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You could almost hear the children's voices resounding from the wide, open windows. |
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Objectives of the Foundation include:
· To provide for a safe and caring environment
for Sujit Kumar to be rehabilitated.
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To provide a facility (the house at 17 Richards Rd, Suva)
for other children ‘at risk’.
·
To care for children/youths found to be in abusive and
neglectful situations.
Children/youth 'at
risk' in the community will be identified by Social Welfare,
the Courts, the Women's Crisis Centre, the Medical Profession
or any other responsible person within the community.
The Administrator of the Home will have the designation
of both a probation officer and a social welfare officer
so that children and youth may be brought into the Home,
at short notice, and for the length of time they need
to be in care, whilst the paper work is being processed.
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Sujit
Kumar at 17 Richards Rd. |
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Advocates
for the Project:
Minister for Women, Social Welfare
& Poverty Alleviation, Adi Asenaca Caucau; CEO Emele
Duituturaga; Judge Nazhat Shameem; Chief Magistrate David
Balram; Principal Judge, New Zealand Family Court, Peter
Boshier; Dr Lisi Tikoduadua, Pediatrician; CWM Hospital,
Women's Crisis Centre.
There are many urgent needs of this Home:
Transport is
an essential and much needed item.
As the home will take up to 20 children it is necessary
to have a 15 seater van in order to take the younger children
to school, on outings, clinics etc. A big thank you goes to Jim Johnson
of the Rotary Club of Auckland 9920, as he has not missed
a beat on getting a van for us by way of matching grants
from other Rotary Clubs in NZ and around the world. Matching
Grants came from the following clubs:
RC of Suva, Fiji 9920; RC of Botany, East Tamaki, Auckland
NZ 9920; RC of Howick, Auckland NZ 9920; R
C of Tawa, N Z 9940; R C of Pinellas Park, USA 6950; RC
of Brisbane, Australia 4069
Corporations and individuals are providing much-needed items. For instance, New Zealand companies, The
Laminex Group NZ and their customers are
going to be renovating the kitchen and bathrooms in the
Home. Ezibuy NZ
has supplied linen and towels etc. Rod Jenden from Wet&Forget
(NZ) has supplied his mould and lichen killer product.
Breville from Australia are donating their range of Kitchen
Small Appliances. There have been cash donations
as a result of the documentary “Saving the Wild Boy” being
shown on TVNZ. We have received many more offers of help over the past few months and
we have a
large group of people coming in January from NZ and OZ
to help with the renovations of the Home the RC of Suva
Sujit Foundation has acquired for children ‘at risk’.
Donations
so far include:
• Kitchen, bathrooms & laundry &
installation: The Laminex Group NZ materials & clients:
Klassic Kitchens – Tony & Cherie Banbury NZ; Vanities
- Joint Cabinet Makers NZ.
• Gib Board: Winstone Wallboards
NZ
• Wardrobe Systems NZ: (Mike, Irene & Darrell Whiteman)
• Benchtops: Barry & Helen - O’Brien Laminates NZ
• Furnishings: (Hamish
Whyte – Furnware NZ; Annette & Dennis Bainbridge -
Starex Manufacturing NZ;
Brownie mattresses NZ; Patricia Proudman AUS; Jim Baba AUS.
• Rotary Matching Grant for Van -15 seater van: (International Rotary Clubs &
Niranjan Motors)
• EZIBUY New Zealand for
towels & linen
• DVD player donated by Richard
• Medical First Aid Kit donated
by Rotary Club of Brisbane 4069
• Beds and educational products
donated by Hamish Whyte, Furnware NZ
• Books donated by Wendy Pye
from 'Sunshine Books NZ Ltd'
• Rotary World Community Service
for building teams
• Social Welfare for administrative
grant (approx $90,000)
• Cash donations as the result
of the screening of “Saving the Wild Boy” on TVNZ
• Digital Movie Camera from
Canon NZ
• Rod Jenden -
"Wet & Forget" Moss and Mould killer.
• Burns and Ferrall – Stainless
twin bowl and tap set
• Air Freight: (Air Pacific)
• Kitchen: Small appliances
(Breville AUS)
• Electrical wiring & fittings: (Hagemeyer AUS)
• Mould Remover - Wet &
Forget NZ - (Rod Jenden)
• Digital headphones
– Sony NZ
• Cleaning Products - Vern Hayden, Pac ’n Save Manukau (NZ)
Management and Administration
of the Home:
The facility will be managed like a home rather than an institution. The
Rotary Club of Suva Sujit Foundation Board, appointed
by the Rotary Club of Suva, will be making
application to the Social Welfare Department to be
directly involved with overseeing the appointment
of and administrator to management & administration
of the complex. It
is proposed to have a live-in local professional manager/administrator
(couple) as well as house parents (older couple) selected
from YWAM (Youth with a Mission).
Saving a Wild Boy
A DVD copy of the documentary “Saving
a Wild Boy" produced for TVNZ by International
documentary producers Rob Harley and Linda Gollan is available
at $32.50 incl GST and postage (within NZ –
overseas postage dependent on the country), PAL version.
Email to order the DVD at opieclan@ihug.co.nz (Please include name, street address and phone
number).
Or send a cheque to “Saving
a Wild Boy” 95 Eversleigh Rd, Takapuna, North Shore City,
New
Zealand. (Please
include name, street address and phone number)
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Rob
Harley |
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Sujit Kumar and Linda Gollan |
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Co-producers
of the documentary “ Saving a Wild Boy” |
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Shining
the Light:
“Let
your light shine before men that they may see your good
deeds and praise your Father in heaven” – Matthew, Chapter
5 verse 16 (Holy Bible)
(Rob Harley’s comments on Newstalk ZB, Christmas
Day 2005)
PROJECT HAPPY HOME’
“It
is all because somebody (Elizabeth Clayton) wanders into
a church one day and says I am going to change my life.
Having been a very hardheaded businesswoman, Elizabeth
hears something that changes her mind and her life. She
is going to help some people instead of making a whole
heap of money because she has got as much as she is ever
going to need – a seminal moment for her. The call she
found upon her life was to civilise this boy (Sujit) who
everybody said was wild and nobody said could ever be
touched.”
“I (Rob) went up to speak at a conference (The Laminex
Group NZ) in Tahiti last year and I spoke to a whole bunch
of people who make kitchens, bathrooms, wardrobes, furniture
…. real down to earth ‘No 8 wire’ kiwis. I showed
a little bit of Elizabeth’s story and this wild boy Sujit
starting to join the human race. These guys got so inspired
by that they just, out on the table, at this conference,
put 10’s in fact 20, 100 of thousand dollars worth of
kitchens, wardrobes and all the rest of it and said –
You find the house and we will fit it out. On 14th
January something like 50 people (Volunteers, Kiwi and
Aussie builders and tradesmen) are going to descend on
Suva. Into this old wreck of a place will go kitchens
and wardrobes and bathrooms.”
She
(Elizabeth) is going to turn around the life of perhaps
an entire generation of kids there (in Fiji) It’s a pretty
nice thing to be watching unfold in Christmas 2005.
If you think of the value of being a storyteller every now
and then you get to tell a story which really puts vision
into people … It is pretty cool when people respond to
someone’s vision”
-
Rob Harley 25/12/05
Contact:
Lesley
Opie
95 Eversleigh Rd
Takapuna
North Shore City
New Zealand
Tel: +649 4897996
opieclan@ihug.co.nz
Website: www.fijilive.com/sujitkumar
