Earlier this week harrowing footage showed Tongan Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) workers trapped on a roof for hours amid rising Hawke's Bay floodwaters before they were flown to safety.
Although these RSE workers may have lost everything they owned, and the orchards that employed them were heavily impacted by the cyclone, Tongan community Pakilau Manase Lua said they're in "very good spirits".
"These guys are survivors, they've been through the volcanic eruption and tsunami in Tonga, they're in good spirits and they're happy and warm and safe now."
He said the Tongan community in Auckland is mobilising to go to Napier and Hastings over the weekend, bringing support from Whānau Ora providers funded by Pacifica Futures and MSD.
"We'll be there to help and just want to say thank you to all those heroic emergency workers for getting our people safely off those roofs," Manase said.
While work on orchards may not start again for some time, Manase said these RSE workers are ready to work and could easily transition to helping with the clean-up effort.
"There's a lot of clean-up work that's needed in there so they could possibly do that and these guys are able-bodied, they've been doing heavy manual labour working in the orchards.
"Let’s get them to use and maybe the immigration department can relax some of those settings and get our people working."
Manase understands there's over 5000 Tongan RSE workers in New Zealand and around 500 in Hawke's Bay, "a big labour workforce that could be working and helping."
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