Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 38, Number 6, 1 June 2021 — Government Can Move lnto the 21st Century [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Government Can Move lnto the 21st Century

J KA LEO O NA 'OPIO V ^ VOICE OF ĪHE YOUTH "

By Noah Candelario, Grade 12, Kailua High School

The 21st century is in the dawn of many problems, and we need solutions. What ean we do? First, we need to think about governance. The government ean think differently by actively involving the community and evolving into the 21st century. What I mean by evolving governance into the 21st eentury, is to talk more about the very eontroversial issues that the younger generation is talking about daily; issues such as healthcare reforms, poliee reforms, and school reforms. I believe that if the government starts to listen to the youth more, it will open up more engagement for youth of our land to be more engaged politically - by voting and researching their area representatives. It is research that will help inform the puhlie about what is going on politically within the government and help provide government transparency. The reason I emphasize government transparency is because without a clear view on what is happening we will have no democracy and there will be no justice for the people. The structure of our government is mandated by the people;

and without a politically active population, the legitimacy of the government will crumble. As we rethink how our government should move into the 21st century, we should focus on mālama aina and 'oihana. We ean mālama aina by building a culture of sustainability. Sustainability starts with restructuring our economy at the community level. If communities eome together as a collective body by deciding how they want to contribute to mālama aina, we ean have individuals that actually care about the situation eome together to make quality progress on this issue. As for 'oihana, the private sector ean do a lot for the community, but we need to empower the private sector first. The way we ean empower the private sector is by providing subsidies to loeal businesses that will help diversify the eeonomy. We need to revitalize Hawai'i's agriculture industry for whieh we were onee known. Imagine a return of pride in Hawai'i's unique agricultural lands. We should also decrease taxes on corporations and loeal businesses, so it will make Hawai'i a new center of trade in the world. Hawai'i is the key that eonnects the entire world together, and why not have multinational corporations be centered on that key in the world. Allowing multinational corporations to be in Hawai'i, it will allow the Hawaiian people to take up jobs in those businesses and take the opportunity to spread the spirit of 'ohana, stewardship and aloha throughout the world. ■