Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 3, 1 Malaki 2011 — Aloha mai kākou, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Aloha mai kākou,

We salute the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawai'i for recently recognizing what we at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have long perceived to be true - that Claire Ku'uleilani Hughes is indeed a Living Treasure of Hawai'i. For three decades, Hughes has been a tireless advocate for the betterment of the health and wellbeing of our community. And we should know. OHA has been proud to have worked with Claire Hughes on projects both large and small, including a 2009 workplace wellness study involving eight Hawaiian service agencies, and we have had the additional pleasure of featuring her heahh and culture-based columns in Ka Wai Ola since 1996. As a monthly columnist for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, her words have been read, appreciated and digested. Indeed, Dr. Kamana'opono Crabbe,

a elinieal psychologist and respected leader in the Hawaiian community, recalls cutting out her eolumns for safekeeping, long before he joined OHA as Director of Research. As you will read about in our cover story, Claire Hughes was at the forefront of raising awareness of Hawaiian heahh to effect change - from her work at the State Department of Heahh, to advocating in our nation's capital, to overseeing the E Ola Mau Task Force Report on Nutrition/Dental needs as part of the Native Hawaiian Heahh Needs Study in 1985 - whieh was remarkable in that h was the first study to provide baseline information on Native Hawaiian heahh. Claire Hughes is a living reminder of the ancient Hawaiian tradition of nourishing the younger generation, both literally and symbolically. There is a Hawaiian proverb, or 'ōlelo no'eau, that describes the practice of an elder chewing the food for a small child, who in turn receives the knowledge from the mouth of his teacher: "Ku i ka māna - Like one

from whom he received what he leameā ." It is a fhting analogy for Claire Ku'uleilani Hughes and

her driving passion for bettering the conditions of our Native Hawaiian people.

LO-

Me ka 'oia'i'o, Clyde W. Nāmu'o Chief Executive 0fficer