Steeping Teens In Kaneohe Culture
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS | Share
Del.icio.usKo’olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club’s Cultural Mentoring and Education Program is now in full swing with 15 Windward youths learning how to teach others the culture and history of the Kaneohe area.
Initiated in May by Alu Like, the program was taken on by the civic club to train disadvantaged teens from Castle High and Kamehameha Schools and runs through mid-July.
“Native Knowledge LLC, which is my cultural consulting business, created it for the club and is providing free assistance,” said club president and trainer Mahealani Cypher. “Our main goal is to train these youths to become cultural educators in their own right.
“At the start, most of them indicated they had had little or no exposure to cultural training. They may even have been a little skeptical about whether they would take to this kind of training. But I think that perception has changed.”
They’ve learned about seven wahi kapu (sacred places) and the moolelo (stories) and boundaries of the ahupuaa around the bay. They also learn chants, work the Heeia kalo fields and clean heiau. They gather, prepare and weave lauhala and much more. Eventually they’ll conduct a cultural tour of their own for newer students.
“Perhaps the stories and legends about these places are what appeal to them the most. We are hopeful that all of them will end our program having learned at least some cultural things that they did not know before.”
Assistant trainers are club members Alice Hewett, Shandry Lopes, Kanekoa Kukea-Shultz, Noe Stibbard, and Leialoha “Rocky,” Jerry and Liko Kaluhiwa.
“We’ve found it very rewarding to share our native knowledge with these young people, and hopefully to raise their pride, understanding and awareness of their own heritage,” Cypher added, noting it may help empower them to pass on the knowledge and “malama the cultural areas and the stories they have experienced or learned.”
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
