Clement Paligaru: Here, on the island of Gizo in Solomon Islands, life is returning to normal after a devastating tsunami wiped out more than 13 villages. That was in April 2007. But three years later, the rebuilding is an ongoing process for many communities.

Herrick Ragoso - Provincial Member of Parliament, Western Province: The earthquake struck at 7.45 am in the morning. Almost every island in Western province was affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The waves come this direction - come this way and covered almost every island here, you can see here.

Omar Moses - Mile 3 villager: I can say the whole village it just washed away by the big waves. And the people are all moving inland.

Clement Paligaru: This is Mile 3, a hill settlement about 5 kilometres away from Gizo, the capital of Western Province. It's where the villagers of the coastal village of Titiana - which is about a kilometre from here - took refuge after the tsunami.

Mary Boari - Mile 3 villager: Majority of our community in Titiana - we are running up the hill. There were around about 350 of us. And that's when the tsunami strike us.

More than 50 people killed
Thousands left homeless
900 homes destroyed

Clement Paligaru: After the tsunami, 48 families from Titiana decided to stay on higher ground and resettle in Mile 3.

Mary Boari: Yeah lots of challenges because we have to fetch water down the hill for cooking, washing - that takes us two hours to walk down.

Clement Paligaru: Why don't you go back to Titiana?

Mary Boari: We are afraid to go back down.

Clement Paligaru: What are you afraid of?

Mary Boari: Global warnings like tsunami. The high tides. They always giving us those warnings.

Clement Paligaru: And on the day we filmed here in Mile Three, a major tsunami warning was issued across the Pacific. That didn't eventuate but the warnings are frequent enough to reinforce the community's reluctance to return to the coast.

Mary Boari: Looking into the future, we see that this is the safest place for us. Again, when those warnings come, we are not running about. We are staying here because this is a safe place.

Clement Paligaru: Will you go back there?

Omar Moses: That's a difficult question. I'm not too sure. Honestly, I must say I don't know.

Clement Paligaru: After the tsunami, Titiana village was virtually abandoned. Of the 125 families who left, just over a quarter have returned.

Tarie Penetesi - Titiana villager: This is where we were brought up beside the seas. That's why it's really important that we came back here to rebuild our life here.

Clement Paligaru: The tsunami claimed 13 lives here. Most were children - Tarie's among them.

Tarie Penetesi: Yeah, I lost three of my kids. One is six years old. That's male. And another is 2 and a half years old. And the youngest is eight months old when I lost them. But I cannot do anything. I just try my very best to forget them. And do something with what I have now. We have to move forward.

Clement Paligaru: Now he's one of the community leaders in charge of Titiana's reconstruction.

Emergency Architects Australia is one of the overseas teams helping communities across Western Province rebuild.

David Kaunitz - Director, Emergency Architects Australia: It's too easy for someone to just come in and build for them but that doesn't leave anything for the future. It doesn't leave any skills for them to maintain their buildings and so on.

We started by doing training workshops. Teaching carpenters how to rebuild earthquake resistant shelter. And then we took that a step further and built some demonstration shelters in communities that were a total loss, communities that were completely rebuilding.

So here in Titiana, we've completed 5 staff houses, with latrines. And that's to support the main school which is being built by another agency.

Tarie Penetesi: Because kids need teachers. And teachers need house. That's why it's very important that we provide teachers with houses.

Tiere Avita - Head teacher, Titiana Primary School: Some teachers are afraid to come down. But we just urge them because we'll just keep listening to the warning - if there's any warning, we'll just move up to higher grounds - yeah?

Clement Paligaru: Why build near the sea?

David Kaunitz: It's a difficult decision. There are two issues here. The first issue is that this is where they are from and their lives are intrinsically related to the sea. And also because they're a minority group, they're Gilbertese, there's not the access to land that other groups may have, so there is not really anywhere feasibly for them to move.

Tarie Penetesi: This is a natural disaster but there's another disaster if we don't educate our kids.

Clement Paligaru: 140 schools have been rebuilt around Western Province since the 2007 disaster.

The collaborative approach to the Ngari Community High School site is now being used as a model for reconstruction for schools across all of Solomon Islands.

David Kaunitz: We received a commendation from World Architecture as one of the best community buildings in the world

Sarah Qoloni - Deputy principal, Ngari Community School: The good thing about this building is that students learn better. It has enough space for us and the students to move around.

Female student: (Translation) This place is good for us to stay inside when it rains. We don't have to worry when it rains, we can just stay in the classroom and do our studies.

Clement Paligaru: There was also extensive damage across Western Province caused by the earthquake which preceded the April 2007 tsunami. On the remote island of Ranonga, the Keigold community is rebuilding, with help. But the village is determined to run its own rehabilitation program.

Herrick Ragoso: The danger is that if the assistance is unable to come to help our people. So what I am trying to do is I try to arrange my community. If there is no assistance coming in, we have to move the work so our community can help ourselves.

David Kaunitz: They're responsible for bringing the materials on site, where the buildings are built, how they're built and the result is very good. The real aim of this exercise is to rebuild in a way that next time it doesn't cause the amount of damage.

Herrick Ragoso: One of the things we added to this design, we tried to make the window big so any time the disaster happen, we can jump out through that window.

We want our place to be a modern village because we want to live a life that all of us may enjoy the life that other people also enjoy.