Voicing Our Values: A Research-Driven Life
There's no greater high than diving deep into your research and it begins to take on a momentum of its own.
I often fall into this pattern because learning and information gathering is both a personal and professional passion of mine. My areas of focus encompass issues that impact our Native Hawaiian communities, particularly in food security, sustainability, economic development and language and culture. My personal efforts and genuine interest in my research areas have yielded positive response in the 2014 Hawai'i gubernatorial election and creating community partnerships in the upcoming 2016 Hawai'i State Legislative session. If selected to be part of your team, I'm confident I'll be able to leverage my skills to collect, synthesize and analyze data to support problem-solving, inform decision-making activities and formulate recommendations for the project team. Additionally, my comfort level with policy development and research can be advantageous for the Strategy & Innovation project team towards change management and innovation. Below are some of my recent and on-going projects. |
My personal efforts and genuine interest in my research areas have yielded positive response in the 2014 Hawai'i gubernatorial election and creating community partnerships in the upcoming 2016 Hawai'i State Legislative session. |
At the 2015 Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs Convention held in Lāhaina, Maui from November 8 - 15, 2015, my resolution establishing a baseline measurement for food waste at all state-funded institutions was unanimously adopted.
My resolution has since been forwarded to the Hawai'i State Legislature for consideration in the upcoming 2016 regular session. This may require supportive testimony to pass the bill from both the Association as well as community partners. Since the passing of this resolution, Kupu Hawai'i, a 501c3 green workforce development organization, has reached out to share information and collaborate on supporting the resolution. Why I'm taking on this project?
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Balancing what's ethical and what's legal is a fine line when it comes to business in Hawai'i. In researching economic development barriers for Native Hawaiians, I discovered "our Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are second in the nation only to African Americans in terms of their underbanked rate," according to a 2011 FDIC National Unbanked and Underbanked Survey. This means, a large majority of our Native Hawaiian communities use alternative financial services such as check cashing and pre-paid debit cards rather than traditional banking.
What's worse, Hawai'i is one of 18 states that has the most permissive payday loan lending rates allowing predatory loans to charge up to 459 APR. At that rate, our Native Hawaiians and other vulnerable sections of our community become easily caught in a cycle of debt, rather than advancing towards financial capacity building. How I think I can help?
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In 2014, I was part of the policy development team for the republican gubernatorial candidates. Many of my friends and associates wondered why I would partner with a political party that traditionally ignored Native Hawaiian issues. My response: That's why I'm here, to make sure that Native Hawaiian community perspective and voice gets attention.
My assigned areas of policy development were agriculture, Native Hawaiian rights and governance, DHHL, Hawaiian language and culture in education, and emergency and disaster management. So, where did I impact change?
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