Team Up and TASANOC Hold First-Ever Safeguarding and Disability Inclusion Workshop in Tonga

In a first of its kind in Tonga, the Australian Government’s Team Up program, in collaboration with the Tonga Sports Association and National Olympic Committee (TASANOC) and through its partnership with the Oceania Impact Network, delivered a three-day workshop from 18-20 September in Nuku’alofa focused on safeguarding and disability inclusion.

With dedicated funding from Olympic Solidarity, this was a foundational workshop to get local sports organisations familiar with the different elements of safeguarding and disability inclusion. The first two days focused on increasing the general understanding of safeguarding in sports, looking at the different kinds of gender-based violence in sports and discussing several components of child protection.

The Women and Children’s Crisis Center Tonga co-delivered sessions on gender-based violence, providing insights into relevant Tongan laws and shared sobering statistics about violence against women and children in Tonga.
Additionally, the Lavame’a Ta’e’iloa Disabled People Association conducted a session on disability inclusion, focusing on the conditions required for inclusion within the Tongan socio-cultural context. The session also touched on the disability spectrum in sports and highlighted specific safeguarding concerns for individuals with a disability. 

Netina Latu, Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of TASANOC, expressed the significance of the training, saying, “The safeguarding and disability inclusion training delivered by Team Up was very useful for our national federations as it provided important information on child protection, prevention of sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation in a sports context in Tonga and the Pacific, which is in line with the significant steps the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is taking to strengthen safeguarding across the Olympic Movement and to protect and promote the mental well-being of athletes.”

The sporting bodies that attended the three-day workshop have been given the knowledge and tools on how to implement effective safeguarding practices and how to work in collaboration with disability people’s organisations and gender-based violence service providers to ensure sports is safe for everyone. We hope to continue working with Team Up through the Oceania Impact Network to provide further safeguarding support for the TASANOC secretariat and for the different national federations. We will also be working with Team Up to develop a safeguarding policy for TASANOC.”

Team Up's Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) and Safeguarding Adviser, Roshika Deo, who led the workshop, noted, “It was very positive to see the commitment by TASANOC and its member associations to ensure safeguarding as a key component of their work in sports. During the discussions, many sports organisations shared how some of the information on safeguarding especially in relation to gender-based violence was new to them, and there was an urgent need to incorporate safeguarding practices in their sports hence they welcomed the timely workshop.”

Tongan Tennis Development Officer and National Coach, Iasinito Hausia, shared, “This is the most awesome course I have taken so far this year, and it is teaching me to be more aware about safety, no harm to children and all about the different things such as sexual harassment. And this course, I know here in Tonga we just received it and what a blessing for us coaches who are present in this workshop. I know I will completely be a different coach when I go into the tennis court because I’m going to be so much more aware of all the things that we have learnt from this training.”

Following the three-day workshop, Team Up will work closely with TASANOC in developing its safeguarding policy. Much of the sharing during the workshop, along with the valuable inputs from participants, will contribute to the development of the policy and other safeguarding practices. Further safeguarding and disability inclusion trainings is envisioned in Tonga including other Pacific Island countries. 

Tonga is the second National Olympic Committee, following Tuvalu, to receive this safeguarding support this year. These trainings support the Oceania Impact Network’s long-term goal of building an empowered, inclusive, and safe sports ecosystem that contributes to a Pacific region free from violence and discrimination. A similar workshop was also held in Nauru in conjunction with the Nauru Olympic Committee as a result of the inaugural regional safeguarding workshop which was hosted in Fiji last year and delivered by the Oceania Impact Network.