Sylvester Tonga (tallest at the back) pictured with his family growing up as a young man in the village of Leimatu'a, Tonga.
Sylvester Tonga (tallest at the back) pictured with his family growing up as a young man in the village of Leimatu'a, Tonga.
A Tongan researcher is making documentaries to highlight the efforts of people from a small village in the island nation working to help themselves.
Auckland University of Technology PHD student, Sylvester Tonga, is capturing the fundraising projects of villagers from Leimatu’a - a village on the island of Vava’u, about 309km north-east of Tonga’s capital city, Nuku’alofa.
The use of documentaries is helping to tell the story of how the villagers and those connected to the village but based overseas are raising thousands of dollars to help their economic development.
Researcher Tonga will travel to the island kingdom in December to chronicle the Leimatu’a people working on their road repairs and follow more fundraising initiatives to shine a spotlight on the villagers’ remarkable spirit of self-sustainability.
“Leimatu’a people believe they are the indigenous people of Tonga,” the 54-year-old says.
“They are known for their warm hearts and for being happy.”
Sylvester Tonga (tallest at the back) pictured with his parents and siblings as a young boy growing up in the island kingdom.
Tonga himself, a father of five, lives in Auckland with his family and is a proud son of Leimatu’a who moved to New Zealand in 1997.
His father was a government school teacher who held the headmaster position for 32 years. Tonga’s mother worked for the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific, a women’s initiative.
Tonga explains that like there is a Tongan way of doing things - known as ‘anga fakatoga’, there is also a Leimatu’a way, known as ‘anga fakaleimatu’a.
His camera work has spurred Tongan communities from around the world - namely in New Zealand, Australia and the USA - to create collectives that market and sell products from the village on their behalf.
Those products include frozen taro, dried kava and traditional handicrafts such as tapa cloth woven by the women in the village.
All those items are shipped to Tongan communities overseas and the collective groups have managed to raise thousands of dollars to support the Leimatu’a development projects back home.
One of those products included a new water installation that the village expressed the need for to their collective group based in New Zealand.
After several weekly Zoom meetings, the collective raised $500,000 Tonga pa’anga (just over $300,000NZD) for the project.
The funds collected went towards purchasing materials, a digger and new pipes. The upgraded water system was completed last year.
“We did this without any help,” Tonga says, acknowledging no government funds were tapped into.
When the roads were damaged by cyclones in 2021, that became another project that the Leimatu’a people launched a fundraising drive for, he said.
This year the Leimatu’a people encouraged their Tongan collectives in the US, Australia and NZ to assist again and it was estimated that $400,000 Tongan pa’anga would be needed to repair the ruined infrastructure.
Sylvester Tonga is a researcher at AUT shining a light on the work of villagers in Leimatu'a in Tonga.
The Tongan Government has decided to get on board also and has offered to supply the labour; as well as paying for the rocks to be used, machinery and the site works.
Leimatu’a village will use funds left over from their water system project to pay for the tar-seal application on the roads, Tonga says.
The upcoming documentary follows another short film made by Tonga as part of his Masters of Communication Studies degree at AUT, which also brought the Leimatu’a people’s cause to the big screen.
The film, Frozen Taro, is a short documentary that follows three Tongan entrepreneurs based in Auckland who help their villages back in the motherland by selling their produce and promoting their own Tongan products and services to local markets and those around New Zealand.
Melino Maka, Siaosi Pulu and Semisi Tua’ataina appear in the film and say there needs to be some kind of organising council that does the overseas marketing.
Frozen Taro sprung the Leimatu’a people into action and since then the village has been able to call on their overseas collectives to implement regular fundraising efforts.
As well as studying and making documentaries, Tonga owns his own social media company called VPON Media Limited which promotes the Tongan language and culture.
