Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 1, 1 January 2017 — Hope for the upcoming [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hope for the upcoming

I I au'oli Makahiki Hou! It is my I I prayer that this year will bring

nus mueh progress and more help for the beneficiaries of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. When I am faced with a decision to be made on the Board, I ask myself — Is this decision for the betterment of the Hawaiian people? Will it improve the conditions of our beneficiaries? We have new leadership at the Board of Trustees. It is my hope that we will embrace Trustees Akana and Ahu-Isa as thev

attempt to lead us within their style of leadership. There is no doubt in my mind that eaeh Trustee serving on the Board today has the deepest love and care for our people that we serve. However, styles of service may differ, and therefore lead to many disagreements. It's okay to disagree as long as we ean eome together and unite in the decisions to accomplish our mission. It is important to me that as leaders of our lāhui we must set an example by being kind and compassionate to all whose lives we touch. There is so mueh turmoil in our world today. If we ean lighten the burdens of our people in any small way, that should be our goal. We must respect the voices of those we represent and care for others and all that surrounds us. I feel very strongly that we take the initiative and are resilient in advocating for Hawaiian rights. These rights are threatened every day. We need to eonhnue making changes by strengthening the laws, policies, and practices that broadly impact these rights. We ean do this by reaching out to our communities and joining in their advocacies for eultural, land or water rights and monitoring activities to identify harmful policies and laws. This ean add greatly to improving the conditions for our beneficiaries.

Many of our families are homeless and living on the streets. There are families in

excess ol eight people sharing a two-bedroom home — living in extremely crowded conditions. It is my hope that we will be able to partner with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and/or private developers to create rentals that ean assist in decreasing some of these problems. I would hke to see the building of a pu'uhonua for our beneficiaries that have been incarcerated so that upon their release, they have somewhere to go to work

their way back into the eommunity. I have seen our released beneficiaries repeat their wrongdoings because they don't have any plaee to go or any family to turn to. I have witnessed suicides because of desperation, loneliness or poor health and no one to tum to for help. Relative to a pu'uhonua, I would like to see more emphasis on helping those beneficiaries who are experiencing drug use. This is a serious issue of our community that needs to be addressed with more eoncentration on prevention and availability of the different dmgs. Finally, we need to be sure that our beneficiaries have heahh coverage so they ean have doctors' visits and not hesitate because of linaneial hardship. What is life if we are not well? We need to strive to stay healthy so our lives ean be happy. After all, we live to be happy and to surround ourselves with the love of family. It is my hope that as Trustees that are tasked with serving you, our beneficiaries, we will carry out our individual and collective responsibilities and that we will do our absolute best and continuously seek improvement. Together, steadfast we preserve and perpetuate our culture, people, land and environment. Me ka ha'aha'a. ■

Carmen "Hulu" Lindsey TrustEE, Maui