A new community hall for the village of Felemea was launched last week.

US Seacology organisation funded the new hall after an old one it previously funded was badly damaged during Cyclone Ian in January 2014.

The organisation spent TP$50,000 for the project and the construction ran for 14 days before it was completed on August 30.

Seventeen representatives from Seacology’s headquarter in the United States arrived at Felemea by boat to join the opening ceremony.

Sealogy missions include “protecting island habitats and assist local communities by offering villages a unique deal: if they agree to create a forest or marine reserve, we’ll provide funds for something the village needs, like a schoolhouse or health clinic.

Since 1991, they’ve “worked with more than 200 villages on 151 islands in 54 countries, helping to protect more than one million acres of some of the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems”.