CLU educator travels to Tonga to teach young people

Educator and administrator Halyna Kornuta, who works at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, recently spent a week helping young people in Tonga identify career goals and plan their futures.

Kornuta, who oversees curriculum development and student assessment at CLU, was part of a five-person team of American educators invited to participate in a leadership program called Dare to Dream.

It was organized by Tonga native Lavinia Uata-Fangupo, who received a doctorate in leadership from the University of Phoenix and returned to Tonga after spending several years in the United States.

"Dr. Uata-Fangupo saw a need to encourage personal development skills for young people in Tonga," said Kornuta, "and she designed this program to encourage young people to continue their education and to identify their skills and talents and use them for practical purposes."

Unable to afford education

Uata-Fangupo, in an e-mail from Tonga, agreed. "The greatest challenge for children/youth here in Tonga is thinking that there is no where to go from here because Tonga is so small," Uata-Fangupo wrote.

"Another challenge is our culture, because children are taught to obey and not encouraged to participate, and another challenge is poverty, with many families unable to afford to pay for their children's education."

According to the U.S. State Department, the Kingdom of Tonga — a constitutional monarchy and member of the British Commonwealth — consists of 171 islands, including 48 that are inhabited. Agriculture and subsistence farming are the main sources of income for the majority of its 100,000 residents. The nation's neighbors geographically are Fiji, Western Samoa and New Zealand.

Kornuta traveled to Tonga with her husband, Ron Germaine, an education professor at National University in San Diego; Ron Simon, a doctor at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla; leadership training specialists Marilyn Simon and Bill Davis; and businesswoman Julie Davis.

Given financial scholarships

The leadership program was held in a community center and offered the 93 participants, ages 14 to 26, three days of workshops and group exercises and one day of project work where they formulated plans to apply their skills.

"The program's focus is to help students develop their own sense of growth, learn what their strengths are and develop their passions," said Kornuta.

"My task was to work with them on perceptions, communications, teamwork, collaboration and cooperation problem-solving, and critical and creative thinking."

At the end of the week, participants received certificates, and some were given financial scholarships so they could continue their education.

"Halyna Kornuta had such a great impact and influence on the youth," Uata-Fangupo wrote in her e-mail.

"She has compassion for helping children and individuals to understand who they are and their purpose. She was such an inspiration to the youth and other individuals present during the leadership program and she also helped the youth group on education to look for scholarships online."

Kornuta called it "a wonderful opportunity to be able to walk the talk' and be able to model to the students what I was telling them is so important in life.

"The whole concept of building relationships is so important, to nurture and support each other, and that really is the essence of who you are," she said.

"They are a developing country, and yet if you take away that idea and just appreciate what they are doing, then you realize we all have the same trials and tribulations."

--- Published in the Ventura County Star on February 4, 2008