by Andr? Hueber
A Whangarei school teacher is selling space in time capsules to raise money to build a house in Cambodia.
Kamo High PE teacher Luke Van Der Lubbe plans to raise the $1000 needed to build a house on stilts with four walls near Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
He heard about
the housing project, run by Australian trust The Tabitha Foundation, while touring with a group of school teachers in the South Island.
All funds from the foundation are used to help the poor in Cambodia through self-help programmes focusing on financial development.
The house-building programme started in 1996, with students from the international schools in Singapore and Cambodia building two homes.
In the 2007-08 financial year, the 33 house-building teams that visited Cambodia built 284 houses to accommodate 2272 Cambodians.
Mr Van Der Lubbe said he started by emailing 80 staff members at Kamo High School outlining what he wanted to achieve.
"I imagined each person could donate $20 to put an A4-sized piece of paper with pictures of their family into a time capsule which will be embedded in the structure of the house."
Another idea was to take photos of each whanau class at Kamo High.
"I'm hoping whanau co-ordinators will each take a digital photo of their class and print it off so I can turn it into a huge wallpaper to stick on a wall of the house."
He also proposed a mufti day where all students bring $2 to school. One dollar could go to the 40-hour famine and the other dollar could go towards Project Cambodia, Mr Van Lubbe said.
A Year 9 class whose assignment is to raise money for the community was also getting in on the act with a competition in which students paid money to throw a wet sponge at a teacher. The students are holding a sausage sizzle at Kensington Hockey Stadium today.
Mr van Lubbe said he would be leaving New Zealand on July 8 for 12 days.
"It only takes five days to complete the construction of the house and I'll be there for four of them.
"It will be a big step up for the family who gets to move in as they're currently living in grass huts right beside a massive rubbish dump."
