Results for Tongans Overseas

Eleven-year-old Sosaia Vea from Ha’ateiho won a speech competition in New Zealand urging Pacific students to stay in school. His headmaster at Remuera Intermediate School said Sosaia’s speech was incredibly powerful and he delivered it flawlessly and with great pride and passion.

A Tongan fruit-picker was fined $650 after punching a backpacker from Vanuatu in a consensual fight in Australia.

Like the humpback whales born in Vava'u, Vaiufia Makatu'u Latu, a young Tongan mariner sailing on a tall ship, has worked her way across the Southern Ocean to reach the frozen waters of Antarctica. Now she longs to return to the Port of Refuge. By Mary Lyn Fonua

Louena, a Tongan mother of two who lives in Japan, is desperate to be reunited with her babies, daughter Kathleen (5) and infant son, who are now in Tonga without her. The sudden border closure caught the family by surprise and has separated them for over three months.

Five-thousand elementary students in the state of Utah in the United States were given winter garments by the Tony Finau Foundation – a charity founded by Tony Finau in 2015.

A landmark court case is set to take place in the American state of Nevada over whether the state’s death penalty should exempt offenders that are “mentally-ill”. The appeal case concerns Siaosi Vanisi (49), a Tongan man who is currently on death row for murder.

Classical musician Caroline Elizabeth Hurrell-Grint, (21), of British-Tongan descent, has graduated from the prestigious University of Cambridge, England, with an honours degree after completing a three year degree course.

Brisbane's Tongan Community have more than ten kava clubs who meet regularly. President of the Brisbane Tongan Community steering committee, Rev. Maile Molitika says that kava clubs are important in holding the community spirit together. They support the Australian Prime Minister's Pilot Program to ease restrictions on the importation of kava for personal use into Australia.

Brisbane's Tonga Community had an opportunity to engage with Tonga's Ombudsman on March 19 and learn about his role in Tonga, while sharing their complaints and experiences as diaspora when visiting Tonga.