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OHA: Office of Hawaiian Affairs

OHA Grantee Kōkua Kalihi Valley's project is to restore the health of the Kalihi ahupuaʻa by promoting cultural practices for kamaʻāina (residents) and malihini (visitors) to ultimately improve the health of the Māluawai watershed thereby ensuring its long-term sustainability.

OHA awards $7.4 million to 27 projects focused on its key priorities

HONOLULU – The Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiians Affairs voted to award $7.4 million in grants to 27 community-based projects to improve conditions for Native Hawaiians.

Almost 4,400 Native Hawaiians are expected to directly benefit from the projects addressing OHA priorities such as battling obesity, improving middle and high school test scores and increasing housing stability.

In addition, thousands more are expected to indirectly benefit from projects to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture and to manage Hawaiian resources sustainably.

“These programs will ensure Native Hawaiians are able to be competitive in the 21st century,” said OHA Chair Robert Lindsey, Jr. “The grant money will help our most vulnerable Native Hawaiians access stable housing, find employment and improve their education. This is a small investment with a large impact on our community.”

The grants will fund OHA priorities over a two-year period beginning July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2017. The 27 grantees were selected from 149 proposals that were submitted to OHA.

The grants are as follows:

Project Award Description
Hawaiian Community Assets $530,118 The Increasing Economic Self-Sufficiency of Native Hawaiians through Stable Housing project will provide financial literacy education, housing counseling, and asset building products to increase the capacity of 500 low-income Native Hawaiians to rent or own homes.
Effective Parenting and Innovative Communication, Inc. $33,350 The Hawai’i Youth Opportunities Initiative Opportunity Passport provides financial literacy training and matching funds for a security deposit and first month’s rent for young people through age 25 who were in foster care.
Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement $348,780 The Hawai’i Individual Development Account Project will provide financial education, counseling, and match savings grants up to $5,000 to eligible Native Hawaiians who are first-time homebuyers in Hawai’i to support 40 new homeowners by addressing some of the most common barriers to homeownership.
Parents and Children Together $523,000 The Ready to Work and Career Support Services project will increase the incomes of Native Hawaiians by delivering an array of services that promote employability and job retention including job preparation training, vocational and 2-year degree scholarships, and high school equivalency preparation.
Goodwill Industries of Hawaii, Inc. $443,100 The Employment Core and Career Support Services project will provide employment core and career support services for Native Hawaiians to improve their ability to obtain higher-wage employment, thereby increasing their economic self-sufficiency.
University of Hawai’i on behalf of its Maui College $350,000 The CareerLink program will provide support services, financial literacy and employment readiness workshops, GED preparation, scholarships, and employment opportunities to Native Hawaiians in Maui County.
Boys & Girls Club of the Big Island $230,000 The Hua Ola Project will strengthen health for Native Hawaiian and other Club members by skillfully instilling healthy lifelong fitness and diet habits in the youth of three Boys & Girls Clubs through culturally responsive minds- and bodies-involved experiential healthy lifestyles education delivered by caring Club mentors.
I Ola Lāhui, Inc. $360,000 The Kūlana Hawaiʻi project will provide comprehensive, culturally-minded weight and chronic disease management services to Native Hawaiian adults and their families to increase their engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviors.
Kōkua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services $286,000 The Ehuola ʻOhana Health Project will foster health from the first breath through the last, preventing chronic disease through a conceptual framework of na’au, ‘āina and kai, kanaka, mauli and ola. Native Hawaiian keiki, mākua, wahine hāpai and their kāne will learn cultural practices supporting nutrition and birthing, reclaiming a legacy of health.
Kualapuʻu Public Conversion Charter School $270,512 The Project Pū’olo will work to reduce the rate of childhood obesity in students in grades K-6 and empower students and families in making positive health choices through a school-based initiative that integrates physical activity, health and nutrition education, and family engagement with in-school student support and clinical health services.
The Salvation Army-Family Treatment Services $224,000 The Ola Kino Maikaʻi project will provide women in residential substance abuse treatment, and their children, obesity prevention and intervention to prevent excessive weight gain while women are engaged in smoking cessation and learning to live a drug-free lifestyle and to prevent feeding practices that could result in obesity in their children.
The Queen’s Medical Center $380,000 The Hana Ola Project will implement a culturally relevant, community-based program based on health and nutrition education, and physical activity to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity among Native Hawaiians, in order to improve their overall well-being, and reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease risk factors.
After-School All-Stars Hawai’i $473,950 These programs in two O’ahu and three Hawai’i Island Title 1 middle and intermediate schools operate at school sites to provide comprehensive after-school programs to improve proficiency in reading and math.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Maui, Inc. $375,600 The Power Hour Program provides a safe and nurturing environment for middle and high school youth to develop good study habits and where they can complete homework assignments, with the goal of improving Native Hawaiian student proficiency in reading and math so that they can increase standardized test scores.
Educational Services Hawai’i Foundation $186,380 The Ime Ike Learning Centers target at-risk Native Hawaiians, currently or formerly in foster care, in grades 4 to 12 by engaging them in academic and socio-emotional programs, meeting their needs so they can meet or exceed standard-based testing in reading and math.
Hui Malama Learning Center $424,070 Hui Malama Learning Center addresses the complex educational and social needs of at-risk youth age 11-24 by providing holistic and integrated educational services to improve reading and math proficiency.
Edith Kanaka’ole Foundation $300,000 The purpose of this project is to rebuild and restore the Hula Heiau at Imakakoloa, Ka’ū, along with the ritual dances, chants, and vocabulary necessary for this work so that hula practitioners and their families from Hawai’i and around the world will participate fully in this process from start to finish and beyond as a part of their Hula execution.
Hui Mālama Ola Nā ‘Ōiwi $127,491 The purpose of this project is to provide Traditional Native Hawaiian Healing Art Education to Native Hawaiians throughout the communities of Hawai’i Island to perpetuate and develop strategies that expand the knowledge, respect and practical application of Lā’au Lapa’au, Lomilomi Ha Ha, Lā’au Kāhea, and Ho’oponopono.
Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy $299,001 The purpose of this project is to provide opportunities to over 1,500 of O’ahu’s youth to learn about and experience traditional Hawaiian navigation, and the dynamic and complex cycles of plant-based resource management and skilled materials preparation used by ancient navigators to prepare for long-distance voyages.
Kohe Mālamalama o Kanaloa – Protect Kaho’olawe Fund $129,100 I Ola Kanaloa will strengthen the cultural identity and engagement of Native Hawaiian haumana, hui, and ʻohana on Hawaiʻi, Maui, Molokaʻi, Oʻahu and Kauaʻi by providing them the opportunity to connect with, honor and care for the ʻāina and cultural sites; revitalize cultural relationships; and learn cultural practices and protocols through Kahoʻolawe.
Kula no nā Po’e Hawai’i $40,000 This program creates a cadre of cultural practitioners with knowledge and proficiency in the carving of papa and pōhaku kuʻi ʻai using traditional materials and methods. They will teach their community members how to make their own implements and will coordinate monthly gatherings to pound poi, thereby perpetuating a valued cultural practice.
PA’I Foundation $104,408 MAMo: Maoli Arts Month is a broad community-based effort to celebrate the depth, breadth, and diversity of the Native Hawaiian arts community, to create economic opportunities for Native Hawaiian artists and cultural practitioners by increasing their presence in museums and galleries, and to educate locals and visitors about Native Hawaiian art.
Ka Honua Momona International $200,000 The purpose of this project is to return momona (health and abundance) to the land and people of Moloka’i through the community-based restoration of two ancient Hawaiian fishponds.
Kāko’o ‘Ōiwi $224,718 The purpose of this project is to restore and effectively manage ecologically and geographically linked kīpuka within Heʻeia, increasing the capacity and resilience of ecological and food-producing systems in our ahupuaʻa for the benefit of Hawaiians and other community members on Oʻahu.
Kōkua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services $201,074 The purpose of this project is to restore the health of the Kalihi ahupuaʻa by promoting cultural practices for kamaʻāina (residents) and malihini (visitors) to ultimately improve the health of the Māluawai watershed thereby ensuring its long-term sustainability.
Kua’āina Ulu ‘Auamo $217,608 KUA will build and strengthen at least three “communities of practice” for ‘äina-based food production, providing targeted, coordinated (1) facilitation, (2) technical assistance/training, and (3) communications that will join together the efforts of at least 30 rural Hawaiian communities to increase community-based, Hawaiian-centered food production.
Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike $156,600 The purpose of Mahele Farm is to provide agricultural skills training to Hāna keiki, ‘ohana, and kūpuna to promote sustainable food crop management, strengthen relationships between our ‘āina and community, increase the health of this kīpuka, and enhance local stewardship of land-based cultural resources.

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