Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke: In Working, One Learns

By: Hauʻoli Kahaleuahi and Lipoa Kahaleuahi

Kamanu Lind is a father, husband, 4th generation farmer, and recently-appointed farm supervisor at Mahele Farm, Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke’s absolutely-operational organic farm in Hāna, Maui.

Kamanu began his journey with Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke, an award-winning vocational teaching nonprofit for youth and graduates of our programs, back again in 2014 as a student apprentice at the farm.

Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke’s scholar apprentices assortment in age among 14 and 18, and span throughout our core application places: Constructing & Construction, Mahele Farm, and Mālama Hāloa.

Pupils within Building & Construction attain encounter in woodshop course and receive instruction in group-primarily based building initiatives, these types of as tiny residences and cottages for the aged, different energy systems, educational amenities for Hāna University, and other urgent neighborhood requires that occur.

College students at Mahele Farm find out soil sciences, planting and harvesting cycles, foods security and make distribution techniques, and other sustainable land management and agriculture techniques. The farm provides roughly 2,000 pounds of develop each and every thirty day period, 100% of which is distributed to our area neighborhood listed here in East Maui.

Students within Mālama Hāloa grow to be reconnected to Native Hawaiian foods, like kalo (taro), and the cultural procedures bordering them. College students also attain working experience in the defense and restoration of loʻi kalo (wetland taro fields), and the progress and implementation of tradition-centered academic routines for their friends at Hāna School.

With the understanding and palms-on competencies attained as a result of college student apprenticeships, youth in Hāna have grown and designed into whole-time graduate apprentices and graduate teachers throughout our system spots. They start off mentoring and empowering up-and-coming student apprentices, continuing the cycle of teaching academic topics via actual-daily life, palms-on software.

Like scholar apprentices just before him, Kamanu developed inside Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke. Following his pupil apprenticeship at Mahele Farm, Kamanu made a decision to changeover into the Mālama Hāloa plan, which released in 2015.

Kamanu grew to become a graduate apprentice, then a graduate instructor, and lastly a supervisor inside this program. He led tradition-primarily based actions on campus, like training the apply of pounding steamed kalo into poi or paʻiʻai (kalo blended with drinking water results in poi and kalo pounded with no drinking water results in paʻiʻai). Kamanu’s leadership aided develop our organization’s intentional efforts to boost students’ and families’ access to these sacred traditional vegetation and foodstuff.

Quickly ahead to about a single 12 months ago, Kamanu felt the pull of returning to Mahele Farm, and a 2nd managerial posture was opening up. Kamanu was organized to be an ambassador for the farm’s mission.

Today, Kamanu is a Mahele Farm Supervisor, doing the job closely alongside Mikala Minn, Mahele Farm System Manager.

There is an ʻōlelo noʻeau, Hawaiian proverb or stating, “ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi.” This translates to, “All awareness is not taught in the similar school” and “One can understand from quite a few resources.” At Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke, we know this to be genuine.

Youth of Hāna who take part in and evolve through our packages are attaining expertise and skills from varied sources outside of the 4 partitions of a classroom. They are rising into farmers feeding our local community, carpenters making stable housing for our folks, and cultural practitioners preserving our heritage and traditions.

About Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke:

Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke is an award-successful vocational teaching method for K-12 youth and graduates of our applications in Hāna, Maui—an isolated local community on the island’s east coastline with around two-thirds its population of Native Hawaiian ancestry.

Our strategy is to educate educational subjects through true-existence, arms-on application, in which students can recognize the principles they’re understanding by means of tangible examples. Our initiatives meet real school and local community needs, so our students’ education and learning straight away serves individuals whose life it touches.

Self-sustenance, group partnership, cultural connection—these are some of the principles we purpose to go on to the following era, as we develop caretakers of our foreseeable future, leaders of our island.

Hauʻoli Kahaleuahi is the Community Outreach Coordinator and Lipoa Kahaleuahi is the Govt Director at Ma Ka Hana Ka ʻIke.