Working for Hāna

Līpoa Kahaleuahi of Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke is committed to her hometown of Hāna

By Ed Kalama; Originally featured in Ka Wai Ola

“Ma kahi o ka hana he ola malaila; Where work is, there is life.”

For Līpoa Kahaleuahi, the long road to Hāna was always the way home.

For the past five years, Kahaleuahi has served as the executive director of Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke, a community nonprofit that provides work-based learning opportunities to youth in East Maui through a service-oriented educational continuum that strengthens technical skills, cultural identity and environmental stewardship.

“Ma ka hana ka ʻike means ʻby working or doing one learns.’ Our focus is to provide vocational training opportunities and expose our youth to the trades. We’ve found that training can help build self-confidence and wellbeing, and even a sense of safety and strength,” Kahaleuahi said.

“All those things then feed into service where we align projects that serve our community in need, which ends up being primarily Native Hawaiian ʻohana, specifically low income kūpuna. We want to ensure that our community can stay in Hāna and thrive.”

Kahaleuahi attended Hāna High and Elementary from kindergarten through graduation. As a student, she participated in the nonprofit’s Hāna Build program, which included in-school woodshop classes, afterschool and intersession employment, and post-high graduate apprenticeships.

Since then, Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke has added the Mahele Farm program, which trains farm apprentices and distributes fresh, organic produce for free directly to community members; a Mālama Hāloa program that reconnects youth and their ʻohana with traditional Native Hawaiian foods and the cultural practices surrounding them; and Kahu ʻAi Pono, a culinary program that links with farming operations at Mahele Farm and Hāna School, as well as cultural activities with Mālama Hāloa.

“Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke showed me how learning happens beyond the essay test – beyond the four walls of the classroom,” Kahaleuahi said. “They were able to teach me early on that learning is not just hypothetical or theoretical, it’s very literal.”

Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke works closely with Hāna High and Elementary School. Its offices are located at the school, and most of its classes are held there and occur as a part of the school day.

“I’ve known Līpoa since she was in grade school, and I am so proud of her accomplishments and leadership,” said Christopher Sanita, the principal in Hāna. “Her calm demeanor, keen intellect and passion for her Hāna community are remarkable. Our students receive ʻāina-based education to equip them to be locally committed and globally skilled.”

Kahaleuahi oversees some 26 full time employees, and Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke has more than 60 partners and funders supporting its work including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), Kamehameha Schools, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority.

A $300,000 OHA economic grant currently assists the group’s I Kū Nā Loea project which aims to increase employability among Native Hawaiian youth, while a $220,000 OHA health grant helps perpetuate Hawaiian language and culture while increasing community stewardship to strengthen connections between ʻohana, ʻāina and kaiāulu (community).

Kahaleuahi said Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke has been fortunate to build a partnership with OHA.

“What struck me about the OHA grants program is the advocacy for community health, the idea that health spans culture and ʻāina, and that it’s beyond doctors and hospitals. It’s about caring for our ʻāina and our food, and about having access to our culture and language,” she said.

“Our people and our island home demand this holistic approach across all sectors including economic stability. As an organization that serves Native Hawaiians, this is a vital and bold approach and one that OHA should be taking.”

“Līpoa is a champion for Hāna, for Native Hawaiians, and especially for Native Hawaiian youth,” said OHA Grants Manager Keʻala Neumann. “She serves the community that raised her with dedication, passion and foresight and her aloha for Hāna and the lāhui is exuded in all she does as a wahine Hawaiʻi.”

After high school, Kahaleuahi earned a degree from UC Santa Barbara where she honed her skills as a Teach for America scholar. She became a special education teacher at Honokaʻa High and Intermediate, and secured a master’s degree in teaching from Chaminade University.

With her credentials, she could have taught most anywhere, but in 2016 she returned to Hāna to serve as a community outreach coordinator with Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke.

“My overarching goal was that I wanted to return home,” she said. “As a younger person, I wanted to go out and make a difference in this world. But I’ve come to recognize that if I can make a difference in this little unique slice of the world, it’s almost more meaningful to me. Being able to return home and work in service to my community means everything to me, and it completely makes sense.”

Kahaleuahi is an adamant activist for Hāna, where roughly two thirds of the population is Native Hawaiian.

“I’m most passionate about advocating for opportunities that allow our people to stay and thrive. When I came back home, I grew angry by many of the issues that seemed to mount in front of our people and in front of me,” she said.

“It was about access to ʻāina, access to water, to healthy food – and just the expense of everything. But that’s where we’re able to turn to our work and dedicate that time to being a part of finding solutions.”

Kahaleuahi said her father Joe John Kahaleuahi, who passed away last year, has been the most influential person in her life.

“He was my pinnacle example of a Kanaka Hawaiʻi. He was someone who struggled with this generational anger and trauma from things that Hawaiians have endured, yet he had so much pride in being from Hāna, and then staying in Hāna,” she said.

“Foremost, he taught me to be proud of being Hawaiian, and to be proud of being a Hawaiian from Hāna. Both of those things are what influenced me to want to return, even as I knew I wanted to leave. I was always going to come back to Hanā. That was for him.”

Kahaleuahi said she won’t be leaving Hāna anytime soon.

“This is home. I’m humbled to have been able to call it home and to continue to do so. But it’s not always easy. We see many of our Native Hawaiian families across Hawaiʻi leaving. Those issues are challenging and are impacting us right here as well,” she said.

“How do we keep that commitment to stay here? How do we ensure that with our next generation, they have that opportunity to stay, if that is their choice? Some might call it a sacrifice, but we see that as a commitment to our place, to our community, and to our lāhui. It’s a commitment to calling this place home and stewarding it in the best way possible.”

And though she has world class training as a teacher, Kahaleuahi said she’s enjoying being right at home in Hāna.

“There were aspects that I loved about teaching, and aspects that I struggled with to be honest,” Kahaleuahi said.

“But being able to support the educational system from a cultural approach – an ʻāina based, vocational approach – provides so much freedom to think, explore and execute innovative and creative ideas. That’s one of the most exciting things about the work that we do in this broad, dynamic, needing-to-change field of education, and I’m thrilled to be involved in this way.”