HM Queen Nanasipau’u’s charity event, "A Night of Hope for the Tonga National Centre for Women and Children", for tomorrow night has sold out tickets raising $10,000 pa’anga for the TNCWC.

Tickets were sold at $100 pa’anga each for 100 guests, with the event to be held at the Royal Residence, Polata’ane, at 6:00pm on Saturday, November 12.

TNCWC Coordinator Fuiva Kavaliku said the charity event, which includes dinner, entertainment, an auction and raffle is organized and hosted by the Queen as Patron, to raise funds to help the centre's operation which shelters victims of domestic violence.

This is the first public charity event the Patron has hosted for the centre, "although the Queen constantly assists our programs."

Budget

Fuiva said the donations would help alleviate challenges the centre had faced as they fell short in their target budget in the last financial year, ending in June. "We had a target budget of around $134,000 pa'anga for the last financial year but we were only able to get around $79,000 so we came in short with the rest," she said.

The $79,000 pa'anga included the Government of Tonga's annual commitment of $50,000 assistance to the centre, while the rest of the funds they raised themselves or had secured projects for assistance to do their outreach programs.

Fuiva said because they came in short, TNCWC was not able to do a lot of their outreach training workshops to villages.

"That is why we are deeply grateful to the Queen for this charity event. She knows our challenges."

"We also identified our difficulty in having one reconditioned vehicle, which often breaks down and takes up a lot of the centre's money to fix and maintain. In addition, there have been limited opportunities to upskill workers and our three full time permanent staff and three daily paid workers have not had their salary raised since 2009," said Fuiva.

She said challenges with limited staff is that it takes these women away from their duties as mothers at home because they must meet the needs of the survivors' of violence.

"We have 24- hours phone counseling and we also counsel at the centre and when someone turns up before 5:00pm, we can’t just turn them away, we have to attend to their needs and hear out their grievances," she said.

"Funding for workshops also cost a lot because we do a lot of training on gender based violence, human rights, the negative impacts of domestic violence combining all those in one."

Fuiva said the centre last year received 485 individuals, with the majority women who had suffered domestic violence both physically and emotionally. This includes a small number of husbands coming in seeking counselling on marital problems and children dropping by due to the negative effects of their parent’s separation," she said.

"With this donation, we are deeply grateful."

TNCWC is a non-profit organisation that began in 2000 and strives to provide services and support for women and children who are in a crisis situation.

Charity

Tupou Riechelmann who is helping to facilitate the event said it was exciting to have this opportunity to raise donations.

"Her Majesty is hosting the event and private individuals and businesses have contributed products for the auction and raffle. Some "koloa" (Tongan gifts) from HM Royal Household will be auctioned on the night. Kingdom Travel has also donated a return trip to New Zealand.All proceeds from these will go towards the center as well," she said. "Tickets were limited to 100 and I am happy to say that we have sold out," she said.