Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 2, 1 February 2012 — OHA developing income initiative with help from 2 communities [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA developing income initiative with help from 2 communities

Aspiring welder bouyed by 0HA's ineome project

By Harold Nedd WAIMĀNALO, O'AHU, and HĀNA, MAUI - Cross one worry off the checklist of Joshua Kamakea. The 20-year-old Waimānalo resident is an example of the growing appeal of a job-training program meant to help boost family incomes in the Native Hawaiian community. At a meeting Jan. 10 in Waimānalo to discuss an action plan for an ineome initiative that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is developing with community input, Kamakea shared what he learned from an eight-month-old career-training program funded, in part, by OHA, whieh committed $150,000 to cover tuition expenses of Native Hawaiians seeking to develop job skills. "While I may not have always known where I was heading, I know now that the only boundaries to what I ean achieve are the ones I set for myself," said Kamakea, an aspiring underwater welder and 2009 graduate of Kailua High School. "With the help of the job training I'm getting, I'm determined to challenge myself

and go further than I could have ever imagined." Later that week, the OHA team met with more than two dozen Hāna residents who are helping to shape an ineome initiative designed specifically for Native Hawaiians in their close-knit Maui community. In a nearly two-hour meeting Jan. 12 at Helene Hall across from Hāna Bay, residents huddled over spreadsheets in the middle of fourlong tables where they listed how the Office of Hawaiian Affairs ean best support their desire to help the community's roughly 300 Native Hawaiians better achieve eeonomie self-sufficiency. Their ideas included helping entrepreneurs in Hāna overcome barriers to starting and

SEE ING0ME ON PAGE 29

Career Education Business Program The next 0HA-funded job-training courses begin March 12. Native Hawaiians enrolling in the eight-week program are offered scholarships through a grant from 0HA. For more information, eall Newman Consulting Services LLC at (808) 596-0200.

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At an OHA stakeholders' meeting in Waimānalo, Joshua Kamakea, an aspiring underwater welder, shares how he has benefited from a career-training program funded in part by OHA. - Photo:Auli'i George

INCOME

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expanding their businesses as well as supporting career-training programs that would allow Hāna residents to learn a high-paying trade, whieh is a source of greater eoneem among the community's younger generation. The initiative would require OHA to work in a radically different way with community partners to identify programs that will help Native Hawaiians build eeonomie stability for their families. "People in our community like to see outcomes," said Melody CosmaGonsalves, 36, a teacher at Hāna High School who participated in the community meeting organized by a team from OHA. "But it would be empowering to people in our community to see new opportunities to heeome entrepreneurs as well as vocational programs that ean develop skills in such career fields as roofing, carpentry and cosmetology." ■

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