Editor,
With reference to my letter dated 29/04/07, after e-mailing the Tongan High Commission Office in London, the Tonga High Com. Sione Ngongo Kioa contacted me and we had a very useful discussion on the phone. As it stands now, the Finance Minister will be in the UK in the next few weeks and Kioa offered to arrange a meeting between Tongans in the UK and the FM to discuss ways and means of sending help back home.
Tongans from the North of England will hold the first meeting on Sunday afternoon 13/05/07 in Cheshire. The aim of this meeting is to put together ideas that we want to put forward for discussion with the Finance Minister when we see him. I am very much encouraged and touched by the way Tongans here have responded. Everyone wants to do something and everyone wants to help re-build Tonga. All it needed was someone to step forward and organise it.
I have not got the e-mails and telephone numbers of all the Tongans in the UK so this is an open invitation to everyone. If you want to attend the meeting in Cheshire or wish to join me and others in London later on this month when we go to meet the FM, please e-mail me back. We would love to hear from you wherever you are. Your help will be much appreciated. Please don't feel that you have been left out, just get in touch and we will let you know what is going on.
Tongans from the UK are calling on all Tongans in the world - USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, Japan, China, Australia, NZ, Pacific Islands and anywhere else that has not been mentioned here. Our country needs our help. Please, let us put our differences aside and work together with the purpose of re-building Tonga from the ashes. There are thousands of us abroad, all well educated, talented and skilful in one thing or another. This is our moment and this is our call - think of the future generation in Tonga. Doing nothing is not an option. The future will never forgive us if we all sit by and watch the ship sink.
For further update - watch this space.
'Ofa atu
Senolita Swan
UK
