Reconnecting with Hawaiian Heritage | Lohelani Furtardo-Gaspar of Ka`ehu

I want to instill pride within our community to be prideful of the heritage that they come from. If you're from Hawaii, there is a lot of intergenerational trauma associated with our language, with practicing our culture. If you're not familiar, it was actually banned to speak our language. Up until, like, maybe 150 years ago, it was illegal within schools and professional places to speak Hawaiian. And because of that, a lot of us grew up with the older generation saying, like, oh, don't speak that language. Like, you will be stupid if you do. Or it's not like a smart language. And just because of years of instilling that type of mindset into the younger generation, sometimes there's this, like, shame about being Hawaiian or shame about being from Hawaii. And not always, but I always see, like, when people come, they are very timid about saying, well, I've never learned how to do this. I can't do it. And then we teach them and we try to be very open, and you can see that they start being proud to be, you know, who they are and where they come from.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community, and in your life. Welcome. Welcome, everyone, to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Harrison, and here to talk about innovations in wellness is Lohe Lani, and she is the director of Cultural education at Kaehu in Maui, Hawaii. Welcome, Lohe. It's great to have you.

Oh, thank you for having me.

So let's dive into your organization, Kaehu, and what it is that you do, and maybe some of the mission of that. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Kaehu. We are on Maui. We are in the Wailuku and Wai'. Ehu. Ahupua'. A. Ahupua' A's are a type of land division on the islands where it's the ridges. So we are actually half. It's 64 acres of coastal wetlands, so it's massive. And we are half in one area and half in another. Our mission at Ka', Hu, it started out primarily conservation and land stewardship. And then as we began doing programming, we started asking our community members around, like, what would you want to see here in this area that's readily accessible to you guys? And they wanted more programming offered to them. They wanted more workshops specifically for kids so kids had accessible place to go during times where school wasn't ongoing. And so we pivoted and we started doing more programming stuff after school and summer programs. We worked a lot with mpd, the Maui Police Department, and we facilitated a lot of their programs. And they would come onto our property and we would do stuff with families together. One specifically was called the KALO program, where they would have families who. And these were court ordered mandated dates. They would have to come and do these activities. And it was a way to get makua or parent and keiki kid to connect. So we would do activities that would help them kind of foster a parent child relationship. So a lot of like partnership activities where you need two people to complete it. We would start facilitating those on our property.

And when did you kind of make that shift from conservation to also adding this programming?

It was early on. We just had our 10 year anniversary. So we started out exciting early 2000 and tens to 2014. And I think our first programming happened 2016. So our first summer program started about two years after we began the nonprofit. But even prior to that, we already started hosting and facilitating kulakais or field trips onto our property from neighboring schools. During those field trips, we focus on cultural education, Education of the place, but surrounding places as well. And then connection with person and land. So connection with kanaka and aina and trying to foster that relationship of interconnectedness and showing people like what we do can have a effect, a positive or negative effect on the place where we live.

Absolutely, yeah. So there's so much to dig into there. When you are focusing on cultural education, what is sort of the mission behind that? What are you really wanting? What message are you wanting to communicate to people? People?

I want to instill pride within our community to be prideful of the heritage that they come from. If you're from Hawaii, there is a lot of intergenerational trauma associated with our language, with practicing our culture due to, if you're not familiar, it was actually banned to speak our language. Up until like maybe 150 years ago, it was illegal within schools and professional places to speak Hawaiian. And because of that, a lot of us grew up with the older generation saying, like, oh, don't speak that language. Like, you will be stupid if you do. Or it's not like a smart language. English was always taught to us to be the smart language and Hawaiian was like a lesser language. And just because of years of instilling that type of mindset into the younger generation, sometimes there's this like shame about being Hawaiian or shame about being from Hawaii. And not always, but I always see, like, when people come, they are very timid about saying, well, I've never learned how to do this. I can't do it. And then we. We teach them and we try to be very open, and you can see that they start being proud to be, you know, who they are and where they come from, and grateful to be able to be opened into that space and being able to learn without feeling that kind of underlying, like, shame of being Hawaiian.

Right. Well, and I'm just thinking of that lens of. Of mental wellness and health for people. Shame is never that. It's never health and wellness. So helping to remove that and connect to a sense of pride is amazing.

Yeah. So that is my personally. My number one goal is to foster that connection and make sure there is pride when they tell people who they are and where they come from. But just helping educate people around the things that they can do. A lot of cultural activities. A lot of the parts that I do is hanano eau, which are cultural crafts. And I will utilize different type of plants that we have on property to show people how they can do different things. And just helping people see that these plants and stuff around them are readily available to them, and they're able to come harvest and utilize, and then you show them how to come, harvest and utilize correctly, and then people can take that and they can teach other people. And I'm hoping it's just like a small snowball effect where people will have just a little bit more knowledge about how to utilize our native plants around us to make cool stuff. And I actually have some examples, like the super bracelet.

Oh, that's gorgeous.

So this is made out of lo challah. So lo means leaf and challah is the tree.

Okay.

And so this is just dried leaves. Yeah, if you can believe it or not.

Amazing. I can't believe that. That's beautiful.

And it's just woven into a shape of a bracelet. And so I make, like, modern things, but traditionally it would be woven into things like mat, basket, anything of practicality. But today I use it to make cute, fun stuff to get the kids kind of interested in making it.

Oh, yeah, look at that one.

Yeah. So nice.

For those of you that are just listening and not seeing, these bracelets have, like, a contrast of brown and white colors in different kinds of patterns that can be just put sort of like a bangle bracelet on the wrist. Amazing. And so initially, these. These kind of cultural field trips and things like that.

Yeah.

Tell me more about this idea. Of relationship to the land. That's definitely something that we have explored some on this podcast and I think it's really important. I'd love to hear sort of how you do that piece.

Yeah.

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We have an activity called Kelo and Kilo means to observe and we teach children or just any participants that come because we also facilitate professional development field trips with teachers and healthcare providers. So one of our activities is called Kilo where we we show them how to observe within three categories. So we have our first category is Papahulani, which is anything in the natural environment above you. You have papahuli honua, that is anything in the natural environment around you. And then you have papaha naumoku, which is anything that can reproduce, excluding people. So we have them kilo or we have them observed within these categories and then we stress for them to find how these categories affect one another. So how does the natural environment above you affect the natural environment below you? Here if it rains we have nice green grass like everywhere and if it's not raining for a long time it's very dry. That's how we get like wildfires. And then we stress how does Both those connect to everything that can reproduce. How does all of this connect to how many animals we have, what type of food supply we have? And then we focus mainly on people and how what we do and we. What we provide within our area can affect the place that we live. So we try to stress that connectedness of every category and everything that's within our environment.

Right. I think that has been said to be a missing piece for a lot of people of general wellness is connection to the land, the earth. However, it's conceptualized for different people.

Yeah. Our first summer, so we had our first summer and after school programming that went on for three years. And our goal was to prove that connection to land and culture can increase health and well being within all aspects of life. Ah. And doing this by again, creating like a sense of pride of where you come from, like trying to lessen that shame that you feel associated with your culture and your birthplace, and instead instilling a sense of pride, a sense of connectedness, and also creating like a third place for people that they feel that they're welcomed in and that they can just enjoy. Because our property is county owned, so it is free access through walking. So walking, access through. And so we are always stressing to people that they can come whenever. We don't have to be actively facilitating a workshop or anything. You can come, you can enjoy the area. We do appreciate if you give us notice if you're going to come and harvest things. But we, we always let people come and harvest if they want to do anything with the plants that we have on property.

Okay. So then you also talked about this area of relationship with parent, child and how you work on that connection. I'd love to hear a little bit about.

Yeah. So my framework for this started out when we were working with MPD and their Kahlo program. I was trying to think of ways that I could get like mom and dad or mom and kid or dad and kid to do an activity together that was kind of stressful and I just want to say kind of stressful because you want things to come up to where they have to overcome like an obstacle or maybe learn critical ways to overcome a problem. And so I would do two partner Ulana Lauhala activities. So oolana means to weave. And so I would have either parent and kid work together to create this project. And oftentimes they are either this is their first time doing any type of weaving, they haven't weaved anything before, or this is their first time actually doing something together with their kid. That actively involves both of you at the same time. And oftentimes they get frustrated. They start, you know, if you've ever been to Hawaii or if you've ever talked with locals around here, the way we talk is like in pigeon. And oftentimes it does not come across like the nicest. It's more of a brunt type of way of speaking. There's not a lot of sugar coating anything. So oftentimes you will have like parents or even kids getting frustrated and their first initial reaction is to start getting mad at the other person. Yeah, yeah. And the other person is to blame it. Obviously it's not me, it's the other person that's helping me. And so you just start to foster a better way of speaking to one another. You start saying, hey, maybe we don't like yell at the kid. Maybe we say, oh, can you do this? Or can you hold over here? That would be helpful besides saying, why? Why are you not holding over here? We'll say, can you hold over here? Besides initially coming out at judging, you're asking first before you're getting upset that they're not doing something. It's just being like a mediator between parent and kid. Or even sometimes we'll have parents that are divorced that are mandated to come to the activities together, and then we'll have parent and parent doing these activities and try to encourage them to have a more cordial way of speaking to each other rather than bad mouthing each other in front of their kids. Because that's never, that's never helpful for the kid or even for the parent. So those are different ways that I like to encourage them to work on their problem solving skills, communication skills. And then sometimes I just encourage one party to just get up and take a walk around, do, do a wraparound, remove yourself from the stressor, take a breather, then come back to whatever you're doing and reevaluate it. And teaching them or encouraging them to take that break, I found is really helpful for the kids. A lot of the times big emotions are hard to process, especially when you're younger. And then having them just take a walk around and a breather and coming back, I see they're a lot more relaxed there. It's a lot easier to look at what they're doing at a critical way. And those are also skills that we like to implement when we are doing our malama ohana days now that we after the wildfires, we are offering these days for those that were affected by the fires. And we do different activities. And I also teach Ulana Lauhala and we will have different cultural practitioners there teaching different activities. And it's different every time we have them and people can come and just enjoy. But we are not trying to like shove mental health down their throat when they're there, if you know what I'm saying. Right.

It's more activity focused. It sounds like. What kind of impact are you seeing with any of these programs? I love that you said you started out to sort of prove that cultural investment as well as relationship with the land could lead to increased wellness. So I'm curious some of the results that you see.

I see that kids and even parents that have come to our programming want to return. So there's a lot of returning programmers that will come to our other programs that we offer. And I see that a lot of them that start to feel a connection to Hananoel or their culture within our programming will come back saying, hey, I'm taking a class at the college now. Like I started getting really interested in our language or I started getting really interested in different fiber arts and I taking this free course at Manoa or I'm taking a free course on Maui College. If you know anybody that will want, you know, this is open. And I've gotten a lot of those where actually parents have gone back to school because they enjoyed what they learned on our property so much. And that always makes me happy. I have kids who never knew that these type of things could be a career path. They never thought of things like making lauhala, things like hats or bags could be a career path for them. And it can be. We have practitioners that are successfully living a well life doing this and not a conventional job. That's very cool. It opens up possibilities for people and it's less constrictive when you say like this isn't the only way and there's so many other ways.

How did you get involved with the organization? I'm curious. That story.

Yeah. So I'm originally from Oahu, it's another island. So it's a little further from Maui. And I grew up going to Hawaiian immersion school. So luckily I'm very privileged and I grew up within my culture and learning my language and hananoeo. And so I didn't grow up feeling ashamed of where I came from or none of that. And I was very proud. So I was always doing stuff culturally based. And then I have ohana, I have family on Maui and I would spend my summers here and Ka' ehu was my first job. It was My first job I've ever had, I actually started out as a landscaper. Okay. We were doing conservation, so I started out during my summers doing landscaping and then I slowly moved up. I was one of the participants of our first programming. So I actually got to experience the programming myself. And the following year when I came back, I was a TA. So teacher assistant throughout the programming. And then in 2020, I moved to Maui during the pandemic and I was looking for a job and they were hiring, so I applied and I started working there full time during that time.

That's a lot of great connection.

Yeah, yeah.

So as an organization, what else are you hoping to do? Do you have any kind of projects or ideas on the horizon?

We are hoping to expand. I am the Director of Cultural Education, so a lot of my job duties is surrounded by education. What I would like to do is expand more to the schools. It is a barrier for a lot of schools here on Maui to be able to bring their classes to our site. It is really expensive to get buses to take kids down. And a lot of the times these school districts don't have a lot of funding for field trips. They have maybe enough for one a year. And so we are working on a different program where we can actually go to different schools and then show them how to utilize plants or stuff on their property. Yes, it's more cost effective for the school and then it's a lot less hassle when we are able to just bring the knowledge to them. And that is something we have played around with. I've done that recently at Lahaina High School. There was a huge day where they brought practitioners in to have something fun for the kids. During the one year anniversary of the fire. They brought people over to just so the kids kind of get their mind off of it is what I think. So they had something fun to do throughout the day rather than going to classes and sitting through lectures. And I really enjoyed it. It was nice to just go there, do the activity with them and then leave. And so I want to do that in other schools. And then we will also want to expand to the other islands. Since I am from Oahu and I have family there, I'm there often. And when we go to different type of conventions or education conventions, I always have a lot of people from other islands asking like, oh, could you do that at my school? Or could you do that at my workplace? And I'm always like, yes, yes I can. But then I'm like, I have to think about. I'm just so, like, yes, yes, I can. I'll make it happen. Logistically, we have to think a little more before I agree to do everything.

Yeah, definitely. No doubt about that. There's only one of you.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's fantastic. I love the creativity. I love the ways you have kind of grown and tried to expand your offerings, looking so much at these different relationships with culture and land and then with. With each other, like, within families. All of those relational pieces are pretty beautiful. I'm curious if you have anything that you would like to leave with our listeners. Maybe something that helps you when you are wanting some of that creativity or. Or getting discouraged with something. Is there any thought that you would just like to leave people with?

Yeah. So in Hawaiian, we say this proverb, and it's called waiho kahilahila makahale, which translate to leave your shame at your house. It basically is telling people, when you leave your house, don't be shame. Just be open to learning. And I think education is the biggest rich riches that we can have in our life, and it is access to knowledge. So I leave you with the saying, no be shamed. Just go out, just have an open mind, open heart, and you will receive something in return.

Amazing. Well, Lohei, thank you so much for being here and to share everything that Kai, who is doing all of the information for our listeners will be in the show notes if you want to figure out how to connect or get involved with what they're doing. So I really appreciate your time. You've taught us some great things today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.