Oamaru Tongan community groups build relationships locally and abroad Featured
Reverend of the Eveline Church Jill McDonald, left, and the president of Waitaki Tongan Community Talanoa Palu at Friendly Bay in front of the sculpted trees they had landscaped as part of a fundraiser.
19 July, 2016. Two North Otago community groups are working together to provide help for people living in Tonga.
The North Otago Tongan Engagement Group will send 21 people to the Hihifo district on the Tongan main island of Tongatapu to help buy and install rainwater catchment tanks in three local villages.
The planned trip has brought the group and members of the Waitaki Tongan Community closer together and boosted fundraising efforts.
In just over three months, the North Otago Tongan Engagement group raised $25,000. The group was formed back in February to create a stronger relationship between Tongan and non Tongan members of the Waitaki area.
One fundraiser included a landscaping project at Friendly Bay.
Reverend Jill McDonald started the North Otago Tongan Engagement Group after visiting Tonga and asking some locals of Tongatapu what things could help with their everyday life.
"After having afternoon tea with some of the local women there they unanimously said the one thing they needed was a reliable water source," she said.
"People were getting very emotional," Rev McDonald.
McDonald's husband, Chris Lambourne an engineer, is the group's project manager and will help install the 10,000 litre water tanks.
The plan was to install the tanks on top of local churches in each village, Rev McDonald said.
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"Churches are the biggest structures in each of the small villages which had a general population of about 100," she said.
Waitaki Tongan Community president Talanoa Palu said the project had brought her and members of the Tongan community closer together with those who were not Tongan.
"I am truly humbled by this experience," she said.
Palu had lived in Oamaru for over 30 years and said she had "minimal interaction with non Tongans".
However, after becoming involved with the project she had become close friends with McDonald and others.
Waitaki District Council had made a bid to increase Tongan involvement in the Waitaki community as part of the 2016 annual plan, Waitaki District Council community services group manager Thunes Cloete said.
Of the 16,000 people living in Oamaru 2000 of those were Tongans making them an important component of the community, he said.
- Stuff
