Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 39, Number 4, 1 April 2022 — Hawaiian Sign Language [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hawaiian Sign Language

V 'AHA HO'ONA'AUAO 'OIWI HAWAI'I V ^ NATIVE HAWAIIAN EDUCATION COUNCIL *

Howthisyear's community consultations are helping us unleam anel relearn equity By Elena Farden "We are a part ofthe community too, but you don't give us a ehanee to participate," was the message in an email I received from a community member about our Native Hawaiian Education Council ( NHEC ) community consultation sessions. Eaeh year, we engage with our communities across the pae'āina in mutual dialogue to help us identify community innovations, bright spots, and challenges around education that ean inform federal funding. We work closely with our partners, 'A'ali'i Allianee, to design an equitable and inelusive environment for community voices, but this message was an awakening. Our Native Hawaiian deaf and hearing impaired community, along with the Hawaiian sign language movement, have been largely left out of our virtual community consultations albeit unintentionally. "Please provide Hawaiian sign language interpreters at your next eommunity consultation," was the email plea in my inbox. The Kanaka on the other side of this email was a hearing kumu at the Hawai'i School for the Deaf and Blind as well as an advocate for the Native Hawaiian deaf community. My reaction was immediate. 'Eha, at first. Mihi, sincerely. Ihen eame a most natural clearing for us to talk story with this brave Kanaka advocate on how NHEC ean do better now that we know better. We had three days until our next eommunity consultation to make this right. Without haste, NHEC and 'A'ali'i Al-

lianee updated our virtual registration to include questions about accessibility support to help identify future sessions where American sign language (ASL) and/or Hawaiian sign language (HSL) interpreters will be needed. Hawai'i Interpreting Services was also engaged and secured for our sessions. Second, we enabled live captioning for all sessions to increase accessibility for hearing impaired participants - whieh also supports visual reinforcement and engagement. While live captioning will be able to address the general messaging, we know it will still have challenges with 'ōlelo Hawai'i and names. With this in mind, our third action was to create the flexibility to update our session materials with captions and verbal queues, while also maintaining an open participant feedback flow to make adjustments along the way to ensure inclusivity. More than these three actions, we are committed to a deep culture of learning for our continued service to all of our Native Hawaiian communities. As an organization, we are unlearning and relearning that: • Equity is leaning in and learning forward so that everyone wins together; • Equity is an awakening of our own accountability and rise of conscious leadership; and • Equity is aloha manifested in our everyday and intentional work with one another. For more information about our 2022 community consultations or to join in on a future session, please visit us on Facebook or our website at www.nhec.org. ■ Elena Farden serves as the executive directorfor the Native Hawaiian Education Council, established in 1994 under the Native Hawaiian Education Act, with responsibilityfor coordinating, assessing, recommending and reporting on the effectiveness of educational programs for Native Hawaiians and improvements that may be made to existing programs, policies, and procedures to improve the educational attainment ofNative Hawaiians. Elena is a first-generation college graduate with a BS in telecommunications from Pepperdine University, an MBAfrom Chaminade University and is now in her first year ofa doctorate program.