Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 4, 1 April 1997 — Educators share benefits of student tutorial programs funded by OHA June 2, 1997 [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Educators share benefits of student tutorial programs funded by OHA June 2, 1997

by Kelli Meskin Hilo HigH School has 60 students who are native Hawaiian. Through OHA's Tutorial Program, and funds from Queen Lili'uokalani Children's CenterLili'uokalani Trust, those students have raised their grade

point average, some to 3.0 and higher.

Last month, OHA's Education Division held a conferenee to recognize schools receiving tutorial program support from OHA. Thirteen schools from across the state met to show what they had accomplished with support from OHA. They showed videos

of their reading programs and displays all, reflecting posi--tive results in students' grades and confidence levels. The OHA tutorial program awards money to schools and community projects to conduct educational programs and tutoring for Hawaiian youths. The program is only for Hawaiian students. The tutorial program is now asking that three generations of documentation be submitted by eaeh student to prove they are Hawaiian. Rona Rodenhurst, OHA's education officer, explained that this is necessary because people today are marking down on birth certificates that their children are Hawaiian

when they are not. Lucy Meyer, a genealogy researcher who spoke at the conference, explained some of the approaches needed to trace ancestral documentation. She says it's difficult to find ancestors sometimes because the name on the record may be different. They may have changed their name or they may have been called by one name and recorded under another. "As an educator if you don't know who you are or where you eome from it's difficult to teach this to ehildren," Meyer said. It is important to know history, math and English when doing ancestry research in order to read and understand the time your ancestors lived in, she said. Knowing the history of different places helped her in finding documents she needed to find other family members. The education division also works with OHA's Operation 'Ohana Ancestry Registry program. There is no cost or age limit to register and Operation 'Ohana has helped families gather background for genealogy research. For more information eall OHA's Planning Division at 594-1960.

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