Tapa Talanoa brings Tongan Women in NZ (and abroad) together to safely talanoa (dialogue) the challenges with indigenous knowledge transfer through our sovereign Koloa (material wealth) of Ngatu (tapa). This taonga/ koloa is owned and led by Tongan women for Tongan cultural survival and existence, as a right for ownership and protection.
Our Tongan NGATU economy is broken, fractured, and distorted by competing interests and broken values at the coal face of production, to Ngatu migration and sovereignty. This ultimately contributes to many Tongan women worldwide living in extreme poverty both in Tonga and the diaspora. Aotearoa, New Zealand, or Nu'usila/ Nusila is seen as a gateway to wider Tongan women's networks and influence.
Vision
Tongan women poverty overcome through sustainable livelihoods, education, and well-being care. Women's voices are recognized, affirmed, and protected in decision-making for societal and community growth and prosperity.
Call to Action:
We are calling ALL Tongan women worldwide in THIS generation - from ALL walks of life, age groups, and experiences, culture and language competencies to come together, to learn more, understand together, work together. We need to ensure that our Ngatu, our culture, our identity, our purpose as women, survives through OUR intergenerations. Prioritising our own, is a duty of care, we owe it to ourselves, and ancestors who carved this path before us, and for the generations to come. [Source: unknown]
[Source: online]
A Generation of Action: Its time that our poor and unethical Ngatu practices through the disregard for our ancestor's energies are bought to a halt, by increasing opportunities to raise awareness,collaborative efforts for positive change, and strengthening our practices for quality, and the traditional authentic production of Indigenous Tongan Ngatu, by Tongan women (in Tonga) through traditional ancient practices for all Tongan women abroad. The change will be inevitable.
Goal: Targeted efforts in strengthening our Tongan women-to-Tongan women pathways, in NZ, as a trusted, safe holder and broker of higher integrity, aspirations for all worldwide collectivism to come together.
[Source: unknown]
There are a number of Collective Tongan Women's Ngatu groups throughout NZ, who work together to produce, exchange, and trade Ngatu on a regular basis.
How will we do this Empowering our women through influence, information-sharing events, and activities to address the complex lived realities that directly affect us.
We are greater together, our interdepencies are intergenerational and means, that our next generation is counting on us, to pass on what's important for them to continue the legacies that were destined before US, for US, by US.
A Tongan Women Empowered is a dream, lived, today for tomorrow. [Source: unknown]
The Change I want to make:
Ngatu knowledge and access will become more accessible to all diversities of Tongan women, intergenerationally despite location.
Thrive Tongan women's sovereignty of Indigenous knowledge.
Empower a social vehicle through women-led quality data and community-centered safe innovation.
Broader social systemic issues expect to contribute to this work:
Eliminate Tongan Women living in poverty in Tonga (with or without children and partners) – by protecting the safety of women (including violence, trafficking, prostitution, etc) in the Pacific through indigenous means of survival, and subsistence.
Indigenous people's sovereignty of taonga/Koloa in Disruptive Technology - building increased responsibility, security, and protective practices for future generations. Upskilling through practice.
Climate resilience for Indigenous communities and small island nations - to offer solutions for the viability of ESG metrics that Westernisation creates for its own interests - putting indigenous practices at the center and forefront, reducing risk with increased sustainable and healthy environments for the future.
Change Strategy - Growing capacity for systems focussed solutions.
- Innovation and social change are interconnected.
- Improving the lives of vulnerable women, their families, and communities
- Strengthening Indigenous knowledge systems and worldviews
Who will benefit the most from this project: · Children, youth
· Women (of Tongan heritage)
· Pacific people
· Communities that experience exclusion
ABOUT THE FOUNDER & INNOVATOR Hainoame Fulivai
MA (Hons) Education & MTF (Emerging Disruptive Technology)
Malo e lelei,
I'm a First generation, New Zealand-born Tongan wife and mother of two teenage daughters. I understand the challenges of being a Tongan woman who breaks away from tradition and faces stigma daily. My family's struggle during the dawn raids influenced my upbringing in a conservative Tongan Wesleyan family in East Auckland. Despite facing many knockbacks in education, family, and career growth, I want to add value to safeguarding intergenerational repository systems for indigenous communities, especially for the Pacific and my own heritage, and Koloa.
My experiences in schooling both in NZ and Tonga have shaped my motivations and interests. My husband and I raised our family in NZ and Australia before returning to Auckland in 2014. I work in Social Innovation and Systems Change, governance boards, and digital advocacy, innovating new platforms to benefit marginalized communities. Im a fluent and competent bilingual Tongan communicator and professional lifelong learner, creator, and life teacher, life maker, and heart holder. I hold an abounding faith central to relationships, motivations, and interests.
I advocate for disadvantaged communities and have a deep passion for understanding culture and practices, including the complex issues that come with wealth systems and ownership. Through my work, I hope to empower Tongan and Pacific women to find strength, encouragement and shared responsibility for their livelihoods.
Faka'apa'apa lahi atu
Contact Details General enquiries for Tapa Talanoa - [email protected]
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