Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 2015 — OHA GRANTEE SPOTLIGHT Native Hawaiian Convention 2015 [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA GRANTEE SPOTLIGHT Native Hawaiian Convention 2015

By Francine Kananionapua Murray The 14th Annual Native Hawaiian Convention presented by the Couneil for Native Hawaiian Advaneement (CNHA), will be Tuesday, Sept. 22 through Thursday, Sept. 24 at the Hawai'i Convention Center in Honolulu. "It is the one time of year that we bring our partners and talk about all of those things that are important to us as Hawaiians in the conununity," said Miehelle Kauhane, President & CEO of the CNHA. The Convention is the largest annual gathering of policy makers, organizations and individuals involved in Native Hawaiian connnunity development. "We are intentional about listening to our coimnunity and our members about what is important to them,"

said Kauhane. Because there are many things the Convention and CNHA could focus their work on, the first day of Convention is specifically dedicated to caucuses. Attendees follow their interest in selecting

the caucuses they attend, whether it's in health, education, small business or trust land issues. The goal of the eaucuses is to eome up with the top two or three priorities to share on Thursday. This helps to direct the work of the Council for the year to follow. "It is such an awesome thing to see when people lift eaeh other up," said Kehau Meyer, Program Manager at CNHA. "No matter what movement you are working on, no matter what nonprofit - at the heart of it, we all want the same thing. We all want to help lift up our conununity."

A lot of what happens at this Convention facilitates interaction and collaboration among diverse groups. "That is the goal. We ean agree to disagree," says Kauhane. "But it is very important

to have all of the different viewpoints at the table. We encourage folks to engage and we really take a few days out of the year and we do our best to eome together to support one another, to make connections, and to hear about the good work being done by our partners." For the past six years, CNHA has working very closely in developing resources and partnerships for loeal community organizations to build upon the philanthropic giving that happens. People will be really attracted to the Paeihe Island Philan-

thropy Forum, whieh will happen on Wednesday morning. Attendees will hear from foundations like Kellogg, Coulter, Ford, Kresge and our loeal foundations like Castle and Consuelo that will share about projects that they are funding as well as the directions their foundations are taking. This will help better connect people and the community work being done with

groups that are investing in those kinds of projects. The Native Hawaiian Convention is sponsored in part by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. For more infonnation about the member-based nonprofit CNHA or to register for the Convention visit www.hawaiiancouncil.org. ■