By Victoria Mendez | Disaster Response Associate
When Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai—an underwater volcano in the South Pacific—spewed ash miles into the air and sent shockwaves across the Tongan islands in January 2022, it became one of the largest explosions of this century. The tsunami that followed with 50-foot waves destroyed agriculture, polluted water supplies, and disrupted critical infrastructure. But thanks to your generosity, the people of Tonga were able to come together and respond to their communities' immediate needs for food, clean water, and other essentials in the aftermath of the disaster.
The Tonga Volcano and Tsunami Relief Fund has powered one grant to a high-impact and community-led coalition of nonprofit organizations at the forefront of this crisis. Our team wanted to share a reflection from Keasi, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Forum of Tonga, about the impact of your gift:
"'Ko e Koloa 'a Tonga ko e Fakamalo’ is a popular Tongan proverb that translates to 'The expression of gratitude is the treasure of Tonga.' The impact of this grant will be very much appreciated with deep heartfelt gratitude by all Tongans who will be benefitting from it, especially those whose lives were impacted by the events of 15th January 2022."
The Civil Society Forum of Tonga (CSFT) is the umbrella organization for civil society organizations across Tonga’s 30+ inhabited islands. CSFT was established in 2001 to empower and strengthen its network of civil society organizations. Together, they are constructing greenhouse spaces, developing their cash for crops program, and establishing water purification services at local schools and on heavily populated islands.
Your support of the GlobalGiving Tonga Volcano and Tsunami Relief Fund is advancing community-led recovery, and it means people like Keasi received critical resources to help their community rebuild after the eruption and tsunami.
This fund is no longer accepting donations, and this will be the last fund report of this kind from our team. We hope you’ll stay in touch!
You can stay connected with our work through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and our Learn Library, where we regularly share stories about the incredible impact of the powerful GlobalGiving community. If you haven’t already, subscribe to get periodic email updates from our team here.
With gratitude,
Victoria + the GlobalGiving Team
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
When a disaster strikes, recovery efforts led by people who live and work in affected communities are often overlooked and underfunded. GlobalGiving is changing this reality. Since 2004, we've been shifting decision-making power to crises-affected communities through trust-based grantmaking and support.
We make it easy, quick, and safe to support people on the ground who understand needs in their communities better than anyone else.
They were there long before the news cameras arrived, and they’ll be there long after the cameras leave. They know how to make their communities more resilient to future disasters, and they’re already hard at work. GlobalGiving puts donations and grants directly into their hands. Because the status quo—which gives the vast majority of funding to a few large organizations—doesn’t make sense.
Questions about this project? Contact us
