26/08/2025
TWINNIES PRESS RELEASE
Twinnies Celebrates Tongan Language Week 2025 with Cultural Showcase.
Sydney, 23 August 2025 – Twinnies Brand proudly hosted a vibrant celebration of Tongan
Language Week 2025 at its Sydney headquarters bringing together the Tongan community,
families, and cultural leaders.
The event opened with a prayer by Rev. Dr. Lisiate ‘Ulufonua and a traditional kava ceremony to welcome guest of honour, Clr Bilal El-Hayek, Mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown.The Mayor praised the ceremony as “the best cultural welcome” he has received and highlighted the importance of preserving faith and culture in multicultural Australia.
Distinguished Tongan professionals shared powerful reflections on the role of language in
identity and community:
• Rev. Dr Lisiate Kilipeni ‘Ulufonua, a devoted Minister of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga, with an extensive medical professional background as a trained Paediatrician, 20 years in clinical practice and medical administration in the Pacific before transitioning to full-time ministry. His insight that our Tongan language is our identity, voicing concerns as a father raising children abroad of the
challenges to continue and consistently speak our Tongan language at home.
• Professor ‘Inoke Hu’akau, a key leading figure in the Tongan and Pacific community, has and continues to pave the way of knowledge for Pacific people across Australia and in the Pacific region. He remarked on the impact of one’s words in shaping one’s own manifested world.
• Ms. ‘Aisiena Taumoepeau, a Tongan barrister/law practitioner emphasised that the law does not exist in abstract; rather, it exists for its people. The law in Tonga exists in two versions, Tongan and English and often when there is doubt in interpretation, it is the Tongan version that precedes. That is profound as it speaks to the importance of our Tongan language to all Tongans.
Attendees also enjoyed hands-on cultural workshops in drumming, tau’olunga and Tongan
language.
Twinnies Brand thanks Mayor El-Hayek, guest speakers, sponsors Brofit Bankstown, Boiika
Tattooing, and Feniu and all who joined in celebrating the richness of Tongan language and
culture.
END.
