In the middle of the front row is Mr Nicholas Murphy, Deputy Head of the Australian High Commission, to his right is Dr Tangikina Moimoi Steen, CEO MET and Ms Leody Vainikolo, A/CEO, MAFF and Ms Betty Blake, Director, Ma’a Fafine mo e Famili together with people featured in the booklet, representatives of Disables Persons’ Organisations, guests and the Tonga Skills’ team after the launch event.
On Monday 21 June 2021, CEO of the Ministry of Education and Training, Dr Tangikina Moimoi Steen, launched a Tonga Skills’ publication entitled Stories of Change for Inclusive Economic Growth (Stories of Change).
Stories of Change seeks to capture the lives of young people and adults across the disability spectrum throughout the Kingdom of Tonga. The purpose of the publication is to raise awareness about people with disability and showcase the impact of inclusion activities facilitated by Tonga Skills in partnership with various government and non-government agencies.
Display of ‘Stories of Change for Inclusive Economic Growth’
Additionally, the publication aims to promote an understanding of the lives of people with disabilities by documenting their stories and highlighting the significant change that has happened as a result of support received.
Stories of Change is a collection of ten stories about individuals who have benefitted from trainings facilitated by Tonga Skills. It also includes the stories of three disabled persons’ organisations that have worked closely with the Program to bring out results that have helped transform lives socially, economically, and educationally.
In this event, Tonga Skills also launched a video series of training in vanilla cultivation. Following a number of successful trainings delivered in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forests in Vava’u, this series has been made to enable greater access to knowledge about vanilla production and to promote a broader understanding of the industry and its value and significance in Vava’u.
Deputy Head of Australian High Commission, Mr Nicholas Murphy giving the closing remarks for the launch event.
Deputy Head of Australian High Commission, Mr Nicholas Murphy, applauded the Stories of Change booklet noting its close alignment with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Development for All 2015–2020 – Strategy for strengthening disability-inclusive development in Australia’s aid program, which reflects the commitment and approaches of the Government of Australia to inclusive development. He also commended the Tonga Skills team for the production of the vanilla cultivation training videos, noting the successful growth in vanilla farming which he had recently seen firsthand during a visit to Vava’u.
Stories for Change and the vanilla cultivation training videos are available on the Tonga Skills website https://tongaskills.com/home-temp/publications/ . The training videos are also available on the Moodle learning platform which holds other Tonga Skills training videos https://tongaskills.moodlecloud.com/course/view.php?id=8
Tonga Skills is an initiative of the Australian Government which is working closely in partnership with the Tonga Ministry of Education and Training and the Tonga National Qualification and Accreditation Board to deliver skills trainings to communities across the Kingdom to promote inclusive economic growth.
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