By Eleanor Gee

Residents and staff at Alonga Adult Disabled Centre will enjoy using hot water, after a group of nine volunteers from Newcastle, Australia, installed a new system today, 7 May.

The group also installed two new hot water systems at the ‘Eua Hospital last Friday and Saturday.

The volunteers are from two charities, Sione’s Academy, founded by Sione Finefeuiaki, a former rugby league player, to support Tongan communities; and the Mullane Foundation of one of the largest specialist contractors In New South Wales, Australia.

Mullane’s James O’Brien, who is managing the projects, told Matangi Tonga that they partnered with Sione’s Academy to help communities in Tonga with plumbing solutions.

“This is our second trip and we’ve gone to ‘Eua Hospital and installed hot water throughout the hospital. And now we’re installing hot water to the Alonga Centre.”

He said they first visited Tonga last October to help the Kolonga GPS. They provided new toilets, wash basins, water bubblers, electricity and educational supplies for the school and its 145 students.

“They had one toilet that was partially working. So, we renovated the toilet block and we left them with eight flushing toilets.”

He said they also renovated two thirds of the school with help from the locals.

“We put a new roof on it, new guttering, new windows, new glass, new doors, and put lights and power points throughout about two thirds of the school, painted it and then fitted out some shelves and books for the library.”

“We were able to bring the materials and some trade knowledge and then lots of locals came with the manpower and helped,” said James.

Charity work

Mullane provides funds for its staff to carry out charity work with help from other suppliers in New South Wales.

“We have a lot of really good suppliers and they’ve helped out with donating a lot of material. Like SharkBite in Australia, they’ve donated all the piping, which is a huge help to come over and do this.”

Mullane first heard about Sione’s Academy when they were approached to donate water bottles to send to Tonga.

James said when they found out what Sione’s Academy was doing, they were interested in doing more to help “so it turned into a really good partnership”.

"Sione has all the contacts and the knowledge of the land and the locals, and we bring the plumbing trade and materials."

The group will head back to Australia on Thursday but plan to return to Tonga in October to work on a few projects.

“There is a second toilet block at Kolonga GPS. We’ll come back and fix it up so they’ll have two functioning toilet blocks and I’d say we’ll also come back here [to the Alonga Adult Disabled Centre] as we’ve got more work to do here,” he said.

Mullane employs over 200 skilled tradespeople and over 50 apprentices. It’s charity foundation provides support to Tonga, Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.