Aotearoa Tongan Health Workers Association
The Aotearoa Tongan Health Workers Association (ATHWA), also known as ‘Akiheuho, was established in 2005 and provides health and social services to the most vulnerable Tongan families. Our services are ethnic-specific using a Tongan cultural framework involving the Ūloa Model and the fofola e fala kae talanoa ‘a e kainga approach. Our framework is familicentred and emphasises the important role of the kainga and Tongan values in care practice.
We are the main Tongan whānau ora provider in Aotearoa and focused on supporting up to 1,000 of the most hard-to-reach famili (families) with acute and multi-complex challenges.
We have services that were designed to engage the families and empower them so they can provide effective support to their loved-ones. We have led the Covid-19 vaccination programme for the Tongan community and driven the community response for the damage caused by the flood and cyclone in Auckland and the Hawkes Bay. We are also part of the health and social service team that responded to the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption in Tonga.
ATHWA have been proving support and care voluntarily and contractually for nearly two decades and has engaged in a number of voluntary initiatives for the community including an empowerment program for the Tongan elderly community in Auckland.
This Pacific Dementia Māngalo is an opportunity to extend our services to Tongan people experiencing dementia and providing wraparound support to their vulnerable families through our Whānau Ora services. We currently have a large number of dementia impacted families so we are already working in this area. We believe that our Tongan ethnic-specific methods and processes are more innovative and more effective in supporting dementia mate wareware and their fāmili.
25 Prices Street, Otahuhu, Auckland1640, New Zealand