Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 11, 1 November 2011 — Aloha mai kākou, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Aloha mai kākou,

In Hawai'i, Native Hawaiian families earn a median ineome that is 88 percent of what families of other ethnicities eam. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is tackling this disparity head-on. Currently, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is creating a plan to help close the median-income gap between Native Hawaiians and the rest of the state by 2018. Although achieving eeonomie selfsufficiency is challenging, we don't think it's hopeless. There are ways to achieve that. And clearly, education is a factor. Statistics show that those individuals who have attended college have a better ehanee of achieving eeonomie success. Research also shows that keiki who attend preschool are more likely to graduate from college.

Indeed, the link between eeonomie success and education is absolutely clear: a child's first steps on the road to eeonomie self-sufficiency start in early education, long before one's college years. Every day, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs strives to support the eeonomie self-sufficiency of our people. We do this by investing in communities and individuals through our popular grants and loans programs. Our Mālama Loan program is just one shining example. Last fiscal year, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' Mālama Loan program quadrupled its loan volume - both in terms of the number of loans disbursed and the values of those loans. These loans benefited Hawaiian business owners, homeowners and students. Offering a new lower interest rate and a new loan product for debt consolidation, we touched the lives of even more Hawaiians. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs cannot stress enough that when our Hawaiian

people succeed, everyone succeeds. Here's to our mutual success, now and in the years to eome. Me ka 'oia'i'o, LO-

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MESSAGE FR0M -< iheoeo >-

Clyde W. Nāmu'o Chief Executive 0fficer