HomeMy WebLinkAboutRD.3 Edith Kanakaole Foundation
Statement of Qualifications
One of the goals of the Edith Kanaka’ole Foundation (EKF) is the availability and accessibility of ancestral
texts specifically Oli/mele and Ka’ao (Epics that mythologize natural phenomena). The founders and
staff of EKF have deemed these ancestral texts recorded data documented and archived over 100’s of
years and thereby are rich sources of environmental information. The staff of EKF are trained to analyze
these texts with community, agencies, organizations and ‘ohana. The end result of these reviews is a
landscape-based set of Kapu or stated observations of a natural resource that these communities hold
sacred and will preserve without compromise. The second major deliverable of these sessions are
Kānāwai or regulatory statements that set the rules of conservation of these natural resources. These
Kapu and Kānāwai revealed and pulled from relevant mele, oli and kaʻao are the foundation for the
formulation of policies on development growth and reresource utilization. The Kānāwai especially
provide guidance for the effective development and maintenance of natural and cultural resources.
Natural resources are observed and recorded in the ancestral mele are deemend sacred by the
community group and are conserved for fulture generations. These are the Kapu. Thereby the goal for
planning is to preserve the Kapu, or the natural resource. The Kapu sets the ground work for
preservation and conservation of their placeʻs unique natural resources. The staff of the Edith
Kanakaʻole Foundation work diligently with all levels of experience and exposure to Hawaiian culture
and language to sift out the data from the mele that is relevant and unique to their place. The staff of
the foudnation facilitates the meaningful discussions that follows and guideds the crafting of the Kapu
and Kānāwai from the mele, oli, and kaʻao.
This process, Honuaiākea, has been profided to communities, organizations, agencies and families since
2016. These groups had their reasons for going through this process such as community development,
aligning their mission, forward progress as an organization, establishing procedures as a community as it
applies to tourism, education, land use, community programs and events.
The foundation provides our Hawaiʻi community with other learning, planning opportunties based on
ancestral text (mele, kaʻao). KIPA is a certification program with an objective of providing visitor
industry service providers with relebant ancestral data of our Hawaiʻi landscape. An education module,
Papa Lohelohe, provides educators with tools to pull out environmental data and concepts from the
mele and ground their course work in these text.
Papakū Makawalu is the flagship program for the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation. Papakū Makawalu is the
ability of our kūpuna to categorize and organize our natural world and all systems of existence withing
the universe. Papakū Makawalu is the foundatin ofr understanding, knowing, acknowledging,
coecoming involved with, and most importantly, becoming the experts of the systems of this natural
world. This workshop is usually held in January and begun in 2006. Since then, over 1000 participants
have experienced this form of environmental observation and conceptual environmental understanding.
- Papaku Makawalu
- Researching and dissecting the environmental observations in old traditional Hawaiian
oli and mele text (chants songs)
- Methodology that translates and overlays the meanings of the environmental
observations
- Community meeting facilitation
- Honuaiākea workshops, organization foundational planning.
- Facilitating large groups
- Natural and cultural resource survey, inventory, and overlay.
- Providing land management recommendations based on ancestral indigenous knowledge (AIE).
- Provide insight from akua and place names and adapting AIE to organizational use.
The Edith Kanakaole Foundation has been a non-profit organization since 1996. This Foundation was
built out of necessity to preserve and build upon the knowledge of our grandmother and grandfather.
Today we have been asked to bring that intelligence to other parts of our natural and societal
community. The Foundationʻs task since 1996 is to address present day concerns with ancestral
knowledge of healthy environments and healthy relationships thus leading us to a variety of experiences
that has enabled our administration to build our financial and employee systems. Below are a few of
those experience we have been privileged to undertake.
Experiences of EKF
1996 - ANA grant for the purpose of returning taro culture to Native Hawaiian communities
1999 - administered grants worth over 300,000.00 to host the WIPCE conference. World
Indigenous peoples Education conference
2001 - USDOE waste management grant, curriculum writing and teacher training
2002 - USDOE family based pre natal and pre-school
2000 - Hawaii state DOE serving 25 students in Keaukaha
2004 - USDOE Native Hawaiian Indigenous Health curriculum
2004 - USDOE Native Hawaiian Marine resource management
2001 - world Hula Conference
2001 - USDOE Papahulani astronomy curriculum
2003-2006 world wide Hula Tours
2007 - Bishop Holdings - Papaku Makawalu
2007-2010 Cultural plan for Kahoolawe
2010 Kamehameha schools- Papaku Makawalu
2011 Kamehameha Schools - Kumokuhaliʻi
2009-10 Englehard Foundation gathering Elders knowledge
2010-13 ANA Kamakakuokalani UH Manoa
2011-13 Kamehameha Schools Ethnohistorical studies
2013 various - bring Tsurugaoka Hachimangu to Hawaii
2013-15 KS - Heiau study, Kaʻumeke-afterschool program
2014 World hula conference
2014-15 Conservation International - Fishpond conservation
2015 Hawaii community foundation - fishpond conservation
2015-16 WCIT - Kakaʻako
2015-17 OHA - Heiau restoration
2016-17 HCF - Coastal restoration project
2016-19 National Park Service - Mauna loa project
2017 Hawaii Tourism Authority-fishpond, hale building
2018 Joyce Theater, UC Irvine, ASU-Hula tour
2018 Hoasted Hui malama Loko ia network conference
2018-19 Kamehameha Schools - Cultural plan for coastlines
2019 Omidyar Fund- NW Hawaiian Island research
2020 Kohala Center - Kaʻao creation
2018-2020 Oceanic Institute - Fishponds
2018 Hosted World wide hula conference
2019 Hui Malama Loko ia network - Honuaiakea facilitation
2020 Pahoa community facilitation - Honuaiakea
2021 Kings Landing Community & DHHL Housing Planning - Honuaiakea facilitation
2022 Office of Indigenous knowledge and Innovation - Honuaiakea facilitation
2022 Wakiu Community & DHHL Housing Planning - Honuaiakea facilitation
2023 Keanae Community & DHHL Housing Planning - Honuaiakea facilitation
2023 Waipio community - Honuiakea facilitation
2023 Keaukaha community - Honuaiakea facilitation
2024 Kamehameha Schools Aina ulu department - Honuaiakea facilitation
Huihui Kanahele-Mossman, PhD
Huihui is the Executive Director or the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation since 2018 and a member of the
foundation since its inception in 1990. Prior to employment at the Foundation Huihui found a career in
all degrees of education. With a degree in Physics and natural science her educational career began as a
high school science teacher for 20 years in both english speaking schools and hawaiian immersion
schools. Following this she progressed from the classroom to administration. As first a vice principal in
the KKP complex and then a Principal at two charter schools, one being Hawaiian immersion, she
developed a form of leadership built upon the lessons from her practice and her community. The
University of Hawaii at Hilo was the next step in educational exploration as a director of Kipuka Native
Hawaiian student Services. However, more important than traditional payroll based career is her place
in her family as hula practitioner and Kumu Hula under her aunty Nalani Kanakaʻole in Hālau o Kekuhi, a
dance school founded by her grandmother Edith Kanakaʻole. Hula is the lens through which all
intelligence is analyzed and conceptualized thus her role as one of the originating members of the
kupuna based environmental curriculum entitled Papakū Makawalu. Huihui lives and works on her
island of Hawaiʻi.
Luka Kanakaole
Luka Kanakaole is a native Hawaiian born from Hilo, Hawaii. His family who is strongly rooted in native
Hawaiian practice and values raised and enabled him to recognize and care for natural cycles in their
environment. He graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa degrees in Natural Resource and
Environmental Management. Through his experience in working with the Lokoi’a o Hale-o-lono
(traditional Hawaiian fishpond aquaculture), he has come to understand what it takes to manage a small
and delicate fishery resource. Although he spent most of his life in the ocean as a fisherman, a
spearfisherman, a surfer, and a fishpond steward, he also has a lot of experience in working with native
Hawaiian forests as they play a key role in our island ecosystem. He is fluent in the native Hawaiian
language (‘o’lelo Hawaii) which enables him to research the old literature of Hawaii. he worked in
multiple conservation organizations such as conservation international, kohala center, volcano national
park, us fish wild life service, and is Currently working with the Edith Kanakaole Foundation as a program
coordinator and is also a current researcher and presenter for the Papaku Makawalu Program and
facilitator for the Honuiakea strategy workshop.
Kialoa Mossman
Kialoa Mossman is a kupa of Waiākea, Hilo, Hawaiʻi. He received his Bachelor’s degree in anthropology
from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo with a certificate in Planning in 2017. He then went onto earn his
Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on Community and Environmental
Planning from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2020. Kialoa currently works as a planner for G70, a
renowned architecture and design firm responsible for award winning architectural designs and
planning efforts across Hawaiʻi. Kialoa also works as the GIS analyst and a researcher for the Edith
Kanaka'ole Foundation. In addition to his work, Kialoa also serves as the Vice Chair of the Kaulunani
Urban Forestry Council.
Kialoa is passionate about wahi kūpuna stewardship and has contributed significantly to stewardship
efforts for important sites such as ‘Imakakāloa Heiau, Hale o Lono Fishpond, Kohaikalani Heiau, and Ka
papa loʻi o Kanewai. Most of his knowledge and experience in this practice derives from his family who
are practitioners of hula, traditional fishing, and traditional carving and continue to be the inspiration for
much of his work today.
Kialoa endeavors to weave holistic planning practices into the planning profession in Hawaiʻi and is
developing a pathway for planning in Hawaiʻi that is founded on ‘ike Hawaiʻi and Indigenous knowledge.
He hopes that his current efforts of establishing homes, advocating for Indigenous spaces, and
supporting self-sustaining communities in areas such as Wailuku, Panaʻewa, and Keaukaha allows him to
work towards his aspirations of changing the field.