Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 1, Number 10, 1 December 1984 — "Get Hawaiians Off Welfare" Says Akaka [ARTICLE]

"Get Hawaiians Off Welfare" Says Akaka

Moanikeala Akaka. a H ilo resident. is the only new face on the OHA Board of Trustees. Akaka attended the Kamehameha Schools. graduated from Vacaville, California, High School, attended City College of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, University of Hawaii-Manoa and U.H. Hilo. She majored in sociology and minored in political science. In an interview with Ka Wai Ola following her eleetion. Akaka said "OH A's responsibility is to betterthe conditions of Hawaiians, and that means getting Hawaiians off welfare." She hopes to alleviate social and eeonomie problems faced by many Hawaiians today by initiating new programs in a variety of areas. Number one on her list are programs whieh provide job training. "We need to treat theeconomic problems whieh a lot of our people have. I'm not talking about training people for jobs like cutting grass in hotels. I'm talking about training Hawaiians for jobs with upward mobility." In the field of health services, Akaka notes that Hawaiians, compared with other ethnic groups in the islands, suffer disproportionately from serious diseases such as cancer. high blood pressure and heart trouble. She says "OHA should be able to provide more direct relief by creating programs whieh impact directly on these problems." Akaka also considers educational programs a high

priority for OHA. "We need to make more kupuna programs available to both young and old. Programs iike Halau Likolaulani O Hawaii (a Hawaiian language learning center) should be encouraged so we ean teach an appreciation of our culture and !ifestyle before they are gone and lost forever. We also need programs in the field of higher education as well as programs whieh provide our people with the skills to compete in the job market. There is a lot of undeveloped brain power in the Hawaiian community, too mueh of it within our prison system because, in many cases, poverty prevented these individuals from seeking other alternatives. We need to provide opportunities for these men and women," she added. Akaka is deeply involved in environmental issues. "Aloha Aina (love of the land), the traditional Hawaiian value system, is another area whieh needs to be focus'ed on. It should be the guiding force for land use planning in the State. For instance, an area of deep eoneem on the Big Island is the future of the ohia forest above Kalapana. Campbell Estate is now in the process of turning this resource into wood chips in order to produce electricity. One of the things OHA should do is to insure that native forests in Hawaii are protected. Onee these forests are gone, they will be lost forever. Two hundred acres of ohia already have been reduced to wood chips, in violation ofcounty law. And the head of Bio Power says he envisions 200,000 acres of Big Island forests eventually being destroyed to produce wood chips for electricity." Akaka attributes her election to her record as a leader and advocate for Hawaiian rights from the beginning of that movement. "The people know what I stand for. They know, for example, 1 was at the forefront of the Kalama Valley struggle in 1970. They remember me from the Hilo Airport protest in 1978 whieh resulted in the payment of over half a million dollars in rent to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. People feel these qualities are needed on the board." Akaka says she hopes that in the next four years OH A ean demonstrate it is eapahle of carrying out its mandate to the Hawaiian people. If not, she says, "1 ean see it will be a major issue in the next Constitu-

tional Convention. lf OHA does not prove its worth, there well may be a movement to disband OH A. That's why it is necessaryfortheTrusteesandstaffofOHAto be open, flexible and to avoid petty differences whieh stand in the way of achieving ourgoals of betteringthe conditions of Hawaiians." "What non-Hawaiians should realize," Akaka added, is that "when justice returns to the Hawaiian people there will be more aloha to share with everyone in these islands. But now is the time for some of that aloha to flow back to the first people of Hawaii."