Scott Chen is a 25-year-old American with a degree in criminal justice.
But even with no experience in carpentry and construction work at home in Los Angeles, he is building houses in the hilly village of San Isidro in Tacloban City, the capital of the central Philippine province of Leyte.
Chen, along with other foreign volunteers under the U.S-based All Hands Volunteers nongovernmental organization, is helping the International Organization for Migration build transitional shelters for victims of super typhoon Haiyan, which ravaged the central Philippines on Nov. 8 last year.