Photos by Linny Folau

A group of children from 12 primary schools in Tongatapu have been wearing special cameras around their necks, taking photos every 10 seconds for three days, as part of research project examining their lives.

The research program, Kids’ Cam Tonga, is being conducted by the University of Otago of New Zealand on selected Class Six students, to learn more about the children’s environment and how they interact with it. The findings are expected to help improve children's wellbeing.

Dr Viliami Puloka, a Tongan Research Fellow from the university who is in Nuku’alofa with the program, said the essence of the research is to see a day through the eyes of a child.

Instead of interviewing the children aged 11-13 years-old, they selected six students from each school and gave them small cameras to wear around their neck for three-days.

“It is programmed to take still shots every 10 seconds and this is a lot of pictures. The cameras are handed out to them on Thursdays to Sundays before being returned and should capture that child's everyday environment whether at home, church, out fishing and so forth,” he said.

"When we are thinking about the environment, of course, the main concern is for their health but health more from a wellbeing perspective. We are looking more at the determinants of health, meaning what are the social or economic factors, what are the surroundings or the environment, the things that help to shape, inform or influence the children as they develop and grow with their behaviour in relation to health."

Dr Puloka said from this research they would analyse the data and formulate what they could get from what they see from the pictures taken. 

"We are hoping to see the sort of things that children are looking at day in day out, which are the things that are most likely informing them. In our study, we allow what we gather to inform us rather than pre-determining what we need to look at."

For example, prior to the start of the program some schools were interested  to find out how much a child engages with screens, whether it be video games, games on mobiles and TV. Another group were interested in physical activity, to see if the shots were mostly of children sitting around and not moving around.

“We would be able to see things like this,” Dr Puloka said.

The researchers are hoping to return to Tonga early next year and present their findings and data to stakeholders, including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and schools that were involved.

“I think what we do is to help provide evidence-based background information that has been done as a proper research, then it is up to government and schools in Tonga to take action on it. Because this is the kind of thing that is in the territory of universities, we can do this kind of research and present evidence and information to a country to use.”

Research

This research program has been conducted previously in New Zealand. Its implementation in Tonga is the first in a Pacific Island The program was conducted from June to September in Tongatapu before moving to Ha’apai in late October after school exams.

The partnership between the University of Otago, Tonga's Ministry of Health, Ministry Education and Training, and Tonga Health Promotion Foundation is supported by a sponsor Office Equipment Ltd (OE).

Today the young students who took part from GPS Popua and GPS Ma’ufanga held a farewell ceremony with Dr Puloka at Popua, and each received $40 pa’anga vouchers from the research program and OE.

Dr Moira Smith, PhD candidate/Research Fellow, Deputy Director/Health Promotion and Policy Research Unit, Department of Public Health and Ms Tolotea Lanumata, PhD candidate both from the University of Otago were in Nuku'alofa with the program for three weeks.