I am currently in my second month of volunteering with VSA (Volunteer Services Abroad) at MORDI (Mainstreaming of Rural Development innovation). Our congruent goal is poverty alleviation, food security and climate resilience for the locals here in Tonga. 

MORDI is a community-based NGO, using a participatory approach to help empower development governed by each community. Thousands of research surveys are conducted to see how each community wishes to develop, whether it be through water purification schemes, infrastructural or agricultural projects. In the Agricultural department, MORDI provides the plant materials and educates the farmers how to grow prosperous, nutritious and climate resilient food. Every community varies by number, land size, education, crop selection, which generally ascertains their goal to either subsistence farm or commercialize.

My role is to facilitate the educators in how to grow and manage plants for distribution to the communities. I have finally finished setting up financial budgets, spray application requirements, new experiments and staff management. I have created about 50 new documents ready for collection and analysis of data and information. Now this is set-up, I am able to get out into the field and start teaching the practicalities of farming, alongside weekly data entry for monthly and annual analysis. 

MORDI partners with multitudes of people from universities, research companies, sponsors, future retailers, commercial farmers and many other interested stakeholders. Here are some of the projects the NGO and I am more or less involved with  

1) Exporting traditional foods of Tonga as value added products into the pacific

2) Plant health clinics in Tonga set-up by an NGO of Fiji 

3) Climate change effects in traditional a

nd modern farming in Tonga by an IFAD researcher   

4) GPS mapping of climate resilient and vulnerable areas in Tonga by an Australian research company and Tonga's PM

5) Innovative farming using introduced techniques to sustain our current environment by Me!

I have designed the first hydroponic systems adapted for Tonga's environment, as I caught a passion driving through the poorest city community in Tonga, Puroa. They are people from the outer islands that have moved as their houses were washed away in cyclone season, they had nowhere to go, so they came to Tongatapu in hope to find a home. Mistakenly, the only place they were allowed to settle on was an old landfill site where no one else lives. Considering they were not born on the island, they are not allowed to reside in Tongatapu. They have no jobs, and rely on the sole food of their partners fishing catch throughout the day. Trouble often arises when households lack a trusted male head to provide daily food. The people in this community are a lot more sick than the rest of the population and have trouble with accessibility to education, health facilities and social welfare care. 

These are the people who have captured my heart, although they may not have once resided here, everyone deserves a home and land to grow food. So I have designed sustainable family gardens for them to grow healthy vegetables for their family. Challenges include soil poison from the landfill, mass flooding, pig and human damage and of course cost. Innovations need to be resilient to these challenges and locals need to be educated on how to grow and sustain produce. Having a sustainable food and water source is a must. It is a source of knowledge I have been given, so it is a source of knowledge I will give.

I have one last thought. So many people told me I wouldn’t be able to make a difference, that volunteering would be a waste of time. But collectively, we are making a difference, we’re taking strides. Not only in Tonga, but worldwide.