Last year he travelled to Lamen, along with Rick Pickering and his family, to see how the workers lived and get a better idea of what would be useful to them. While there they helped fulfil the villagers' wish of building a children's performance stage.
"They offered us spectacular hospitality, despite having very little themselves. We felt compelled to help these beautiful people."
The Kerikeri residents noticed the island had no streams so, despite abundant rainfall at certain times of year, they were often short of drinking water. Most of their drinking water came from wells but they were easily contaminated by long-drops when the cyclone season brought flooding, putting them at risk of disease.
Mr Anderson and Mr Pickering, who works on Kerikeri's irrigation system, hit on the idea of installing plastic water tanks so set about fundraising for tanks, pipes and fittings.
In their first year they bought 16 1100-litre tanks in the capital, Port Vila, and barged them about 130km to Lamen. This year they bought four 6000-litre tanks and set them up at a hilltop church with a corrugated iron roof. The water is then gravity-fed to the island's three villages.
Mr Anderson said an important aspect of the project was teaching the villagers to take ownership of the tanks by doing the installation themselves.
Last year they raised $28,402 - mostly donations from Kerikeri churchgoers - and cover their travel and accommodation costs out of their own pockets.
At the beginning they thought they would install one or two tanks. Twenty tanks later they are now eyeing up water needs on the neighbouring, much larger island of Epi.
• Contact Peter Anderson on peterlisaand@xtra.co.nz to find out about contributing to the project. Possibilities range from one-off donations to sponsoring a whole tank or setting up automatic payments.