WELCOME TO SIA’ATOUTAI THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
KINGDOM OF TONGA
The Pacific Ocean.
Friday, June 04, 2004
 

1. INTRODUCTION:

v The Island of Tonga.
v Sia’atoutai Theological College

 2. BODY:

v Sia’atoutai Thelogical College Library.
v Sia’atoutai Thelogical College Archive.

3. CONCLUSION:

v  Hope and Vision of Archives in Asia and Pacific.

HAVE A GOOD TIME IN TONGA AND GOD BLESS YOU.
…….
 
 

THE KINGDOM OF TONGA
Tonga is one of the islands in the South Pacific. It is an Independent  Monarchy island. The population is one hundred thousand, the weather is like here in Bangalore and Bangladesh. The currency is Tongan Pa’anga. It has a 718 sq km with many many islands. Most of the people are Christians. There are Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans. We have The Free Wesleyan Church, Free Church of Tonga and the Church of Tonga. European explorer (Captain Cook) came by and call the Island “THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS OF TONGA” because the people were so friendly and also respectful. In Tonga I am happy to say there are many Indians, Chinese, Philippians, Koreans, Japanese, New Zealanders, Europeans and others. In the mean time Hindi movies and music are became very popular in the Island

THE COLLEGE
Sia’atoutai Theological College was established in 1948 and named by our late King, Queen Salote Tupou III. Sia means, the weaving of the fishing net. Toutai means fishing. ( Gospel according to Matthew 28: 19&20 and Luke 5:10b)
In the college we offered three programs, The Certificate in Theology (Tongan), The Diploma in Theology and Bachelor in Divinity (English). We have 182 of students being married and unmarried boys and girls. It is a boarding school. The college is belongs to the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga (Methodist).
 
 
 

THE COLLEGE LIBRARY:
 We have a Library with collection of one thousand books. ( books, journals, magazines and pamphlets) and also computers. We have book catalogue, Card Catalogue and also computer catalogue. Students have to borrow five books at least for one week. We to believe that Library is a place where information is collected and stored for library users and we hope that they have to get the right information.

THE COLLEGE ARCHIVE:
 We in Sia’atoutai only heard about the Archives but we have not yet seen what archive is all about. We have a lot of documents in the Church that are now rotting away, because we do not have that necessary tools and no archivist to look after those important and documents for Tonga. The Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga has  begun to do some Archiving work, but only on a half measure  because of the lack of fund for just work. To be honest, the amount of archiving work that has been done in order to keep the Church’s documents from rotting away is so minimal.

In Sia’atoutai Theological College which I am representing in this workshop, has started to pool a fund to build an archives where we  can preserve various documents about the life and development of the College. This project is depended on the benevolence of the students. We have accumulated only $10,000.00 towards this end. To preserve of some of our very old documents may be coming a little bit too late. What are we going to tell the children of the future? Should Tonga be once again resort to oral tradition, in the age of high-tech developments. Please, awaken us to be able to see where we have gone wrong in this matter of concern.

In CONCLUSION the last but not the least, OUR HOPES AND VISIONS OF ARCHIVES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC WILL COME TO YOU AFTER 5 YEARS THEN WHEN WE MEET AT ????.
 
MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
MALO ‘AUPITO (THANK YOU)

For any questions please condact ;
[email protected]
(fakaanaua means dreaming of, in hope of getting it some day)