For the past three years, former Tongan politician and academic Dr Sitiveni Halapua has journeyed around the world to raise funds for a sustainable shipping service to benefit the people of his ancestral home.
While he considers Nuku’alofa his home in Tonga, the currently New Zealand-based Dr Halapua explains his father is from the Niua islands, where a vaka (pictured) being built is destined for.
Dr Halapua, the former deputy leader of the Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands, has a PhD in Economics from the University of Kent.
He has lectured at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, and has worked as Director of the Pacific Islands Development Programme at Hawaii’s East-West Center.
During his time at East-West Center Dr Halapua developed a conflict-resolution system based on the Polynesian practice of talanoa, which he has applied in the Cook Islands, Fiji and Tonga.
He has also been appointed to the National Committee for Political Reform, which produced a road map for political and constitutional reform in Tonga.
More recently, Project Vaka Fanaua has consumed Dr Halapua’s time as he has travelled to appeal to the Tongan diaspora in the United States, Australia and NZ for funds to build a mostly wind-powered vessel for the Niua islands to transport cargo.
Dr Halapua says he wants to empower the outer island communities and help to foster an economic rejuvenation.
“When I was working in Parliament and as an academic, I travelled around Tonga talking to people about political change,” Dr Halapua says.
“When I was in the Niua islands, people kept saying my father was from the island, and as an educated man of the area, could I think about their problem – which was transporting cargo in a sustainable and inexpensive way.”
Currently, transporting cargo to these outer islands, which are closer to Samoa, is hugely expensive and is damaging marine and eco-systems.
Along with North American Boat Designers Hall of Fame Dick Newick, Dr Halapua created Vaka Fanaua, an innovative community driven project that promotes economic self-sufficiency, sustainability and environmental conservation.
Building and operating a prototype competitive cargo trimaran for the Niua islands communities is its first target, providing these communities with shipping without a reliance on the national government or aid donors.
The boat has been built in Pipiroa, near Thames in the Coromandel Peninsula, and it will be launched on November 21, when it will be sailed to Auckland to be fit with its sails and mast before continuing on to Tonga and being delivered to the Niua Island communities.