 Hi, welcome to Seymour's World on Think Tech Hawaii. I welcome all our friends and neighbors from around the world. We have a fabulous show here today. It's going to be called Empowerment and Giving Back. But before we get to the show, I want to show you a couple of photographs of last week. You remember when we were with Dave Livingston, and he talked about all of the fun things that Rotary does? Well, here's a few pictures that you could see. This was me at the Rotary Club luncheon where I was the guest host, and there's me giving... Let's hold that picture for a second. Dave is wearing an I Am In Charge shirt, which is something that we do with one of the topics we're doing today. Let's see the next one. There I am speaking, and I think that's enough. That just gives you the idea. It's the Rotary Club of Waikiki or Honolulu, and it was just a fabulous meeting. These people give away a lot of money, and they do a lot of things for their community. So let's get on to today's show. Empowerment. Now, I have a co-guest here with me, a co-host with me, Sharon. You have been with me before, actually, just a few weeks ago, and now you are one of the best hosts on Think Tech Hawaii. Oh, thank you. Welcome back. Well, it's true. It's true. You were one of the... I think one of your weeks, you were the highest rated show of the week, which is terrific. Wow, that's amazing. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. I feel slightly responsible for bringing you to Think Tech Hawaii, so it's wonderful to have you aboard. And we have Patria, who is from Kids or Two, and Hiro, who is from Kids or Two. And both of you have been on this show as well before, and the reason I'm smiling so much is because I'm so happy that we're all together. The reason is because empowerment and giving back is something all four of us have in common. And I think it's so important to understand it's not all about making money. That happiness in this world is about doing things for other people. You happen to be doing it for sisters empowering Hawai'i. Sisters empowering Hawai'i. And you guys are doing it for Kids or Two, which is all about kids. And to me, that is such a critical piece of our community. Yes, we all have to make money. Yes, we all have to feed our families. But what you are doing is critical for those people who need that little extra push, whether it's for the women in our audience and the women around the world and you guys for the kids. We're also, just before we get into it, I want to say that Sharon, you're going to be speaking at the same group I just showed at the Rotary Club Network. Thank you so much. And you'll enjoy that because it's a large group of people and you'll find them extremely receptive and I know what you'll talk about will be very inspirational to them. And then you guys are getting something from Dave Livingston, who was my guest last week, where he is going to help your foster youth coordinate a program in the YMCA. So everything comes around. It's amazing how things really come in circles. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you all here is because I want the audience to know whether you're in Austria or whether you're in Germany or Canada or here in the U.S., that we're all in the same boat, that kids need help, women need help, mothers need help, everybody somewhere needs help and we all should do something to help those people. So Sharon, why don't we introduce Sisters Empowering Hawaii a little bit? Absolutely. Sisters Empowering Hawaii is Hawaii's foremost women's empowerment organization. And our biggest goal and mission and objective is to empower, motivate and educate all women, all across the board. And so I always look at happiness as something to look forward to and I really love the fact that empowering women and I love confident women who are able to also give. And like you said before, it's not all about getting paid, yes we do need to get paid. But what you give, the return is so much larger. So thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to come on once again. Well I have to tell you that it's a pleasure having you on because I don't have to say anything once you take over the microphone, even if it falls off, it's wonderful. Patria, tell us a little bit again about Kids Hurt 2. So Kids Hurt 2 Hawaii is an organization that works with kids who have had a loss of some sort of a parent. So kids lose parents for a variety of reasons and so we get referrals from families themselves but also from a variety of different places all around the community. And we do peer-to-peer support groups for kids who have lost parents and we also work with youth transitioning out of foster care. Which is something that I'm involved with you with or you are in charge of. We're going to actually show some pictures of that a little bit later. Hiro, you tell us what you do at Kids Hurt 2. I'm the founder of the Kids Hurt 2 Hawaii 16 years ago with my wife Cynthia and then my friends, I mean three of us founded. And then we've been supporting grieving children, so peer-to-peer, peer support and doing a lot of activities and also at the same time. Hiro, I know for a fact that you do much more than that. You also go back to Japan to help the grieving children in Japan. And that's part of the Kids Hurt 2 program too. Explain how that works. The 2011, the big earthquake happened in northern part of Japan around Fukushima and then I started going since June of 2011 and then up until last year, you know, every two months I go back to Japan and the Tohoku area and we provide support groups and training like we do in Hawaii. So that was pretty busy in a sense, but back and forth and I was doing a group and programs half of the month in Hawaii, maybe two-thirds and then 10 days or two weeks or so go to Japan and work with those kids. So Kids Hurt 2, Patria, the aim of Kids Hurt 2 is overall helping children, children in need for grieving children. But what Hiro is doing is on an international scale. Now, how many kids have you helped Hiro in Japan? I don't know. Close to maybe a thousand. A thousand kids. And we brought, last year we brought 44 children, four parents from the tsunami and then we did an international grief trauma account with the local children. So last year it was 60, 45. And this year we brought 20, you know, children who were family members through the tsunami and then we did about 30 children's grief international campaign up in the North Shore this much. That is terrific. Well, I can tell you that I'm part of this Kids Hurt 2 organization and they are the most worthy, worthy of organizations because nothing is more important than helping our kids and what Patria does and what Hiro does both on a Hawaii level and an international level needs a tremendous amount of support. And we did have a fundraiser. We're going to talk about that and the next fundraiser. But more important than that is we're going to accentuate how we're going to get sisters in power in Hawaii helping you guys. So could you explain what we're doing to help them via your, it's not a donation. It's a scholarship. Absolutely. Unfortunately sisters in power in Hawaii every year March is National Women's History Month and in March we had our second annual women making history luncheon and it was also a book signing. We were able to partner with Argosy University. They were so generous and so giving and very involved and inspiring and motivating and of course educating people. They donated to each attendee, which we had well over 200 attendees we were sold out at the Wildlife Country Club, that they donated to each attendee $5,000 scholarship and fortunately some of the people said you know Sharon I would like to pay this for it and we already have our doctorate, we already have our masters and they returned some of the certificates to me to pay it forward. And so when I came on your show and I donated them to you, you paid it for it and you offered it to kids her too, is that correct? So this is a $5,000 scholarship to show it to the camera, show it to the camera right here. Yep, perfect. Right there is a $5,000 Argosy University Hawaii Scott, $5,000 scholarship and says congratulations sisters in power in Hawaii March 2017. And I'm so happy that I'm able to donate this to your children so we can further their education to empower them, inspire them and educate them as well. So here you are. Thank you. You're very welcome. So Patrick, since this happened, I mean you see how things go around, it's absolutely amazing. You gave it to me and I said I know somebody who really needs it and it's some of your foster kids right? Explain to me how these are going to be given. So we work with foster youth who are leaving the system and that can be a very tenuous time for young people without a solid base of support and many do not have that support, trying to figure out how to make a living wage and some are not on a track to go to college, they don't have a path to college. So as we get to know these young people, it becomes clear who's really ready and would jump at the chance if they had the resources available. So we have several young people who we're talking with and finding out who's ready to commit to pursuing this and we also do some work development pieces with young people. So we want to encourage college, we want to encourage making a living wage and finding work that they enjoy doing and can grow in. So this allows us to offer something really special to a couple of our young people. Well what we need to do, I think if it's okay with you Sharon and with you Patrick, is when you decide on which of your recipients will get these two scholarships, why don't we bring them on the show and you, I think that would be great. Oh I would love that. You would be able to come on as well and we do a presentation to them on air, which I think would be great for them and their families to see. Yeah. All right, are you all? I'm on board for that and another thing I would like to add. Please. Which is wonderful about this scholarship, they have two years to use it. So this gives them a time to research the field that they would like to go into, have a chance to visit the campus, get familiar with the campus, and get in that comfort zone. So I'm very excited about this. I would love to come back and present it to you too. I have another surprise for you. If you find another one, I am willing and ready to give another $5,000 scholarship. Wow, that's extremely generous. That would be fantastic. That is so cool. Thank you, Sharon. Oh, I'm so excited about this. Well, I think you know what it does? It just shows what we all want to do. And that's to help, especially young people, it's so important. And I think from my experience with what KidsHer2 does, and what the Hawaii Foster Youth Coalition does, and what my program, You're In Charge, does with the kids, education is truly the key. Yes, we can help them get jobs, but if we can get them in education, they will have a much better life and they'll be a much better contributing member to our society. And I think that's a critical issue for all of us, don't you think? Yes. So Sharon, I want to hear a little bit more about what your plans are. You're a guest host here. You're on How Often? Are you so people can find you? Thanks to you. We have a show Sister Power, which I am the host of, and it's on every other Thursday at 4 PM. And we're live, and fortunately I've had two guests so far. The honorable Sandra Sooms, she's a retired judge. And she's a Hawaii's first African American judge, woman judge as a matter of fact. And then we were also able to have on yesterday, Tadia Rice, who she received the 2017 Ellis Medal Honor, which is very prestigious. And this was given out in New York. So this is a wonderful platform. I was saying yesterday, a lot of times when we girls meet for lunch, we don't really have a chance to talk about what we do and how we do. And so through your giving, paying it forward, we're able to have a platform where we can have sister talk right here at Think Tech. Just a wonderful. Think Tech Hawaii. Think Tech is wonderful. Now, Patrick and Hiro, we're going to show some photographs, some pictures of the Kids Who Are Two events and things that we've done together. And I'd like you and all of us to actually comment on them as we go. Because I want people to see what Kids Who Are Two is all about. So if we could bring one. Okay, there's the first. Hiro, there you are. That's with me. And that's James, who has been on our show and is a wonderful, wonderful speaker. James has been with you for several years now, right? Yes, quite a long time. Yeah, yeah. And really, he's been with us and for our new store. Yeah, he's been coming out every week to work with us on this new program we're trying to launch. And he's really excited to contribute and we talk about ideas. And yeah, it's wonderful. And this event actually was a fundraiser that we did at the Coalau Golf Club. Right. And I was honored at that fundraiser. Thank you very much. That was wonderful. And we raised a lot of money for Kids Who Are Two, which is absolutely fabulous. And James was one of our speakers. And he was so inspirational, absolutely amazing. Whenever we do outreach programs like we do your, what's the program we do once a year? A real world? The real world program. That's right. He's one of the guys that's doing it with it. Now, we've got to take a short break. And then we're going to look at some more of the pictures of Kids Who Are Two and what they do and we'll go from there. So I'm here with Sharon, with Hiro, and with Patria. We're on Seymour's World and we're talking about empowerment and giving back. We'll be back in a minute. Aloha, my name is Steven Philip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii, where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. Hi, welcome back to Seymour's World on Think Tech Hawaii. We're here with three of my favorite people in the world who have all been on my show before. But I have to say we are together now because we're intermixing. We're just, all of us are working together. And I think Sharon, you said the word, we're going forward with it. And I think that's so important because all of us have to rely on helping each other. One of the most important things we do. Sharon Yarbrough is here from Sisters in Power in Hawaii. Hiro and Patria are here from Kids Who Are Two. And I'm representing, I guess, just me. But in any case, we're going to talk a little bit about Kids Who Are Two and what we do there. So here's our first picture. Oh, that's my wife. She's lovely. Yes, Sue is my rock. She is the lady who holds me together. Responsible. If any of you do watch my commentaries, and I know a lot of you do because I get a lot of comments. Sue is actually the one mostly responsible for the commentaries. She comes up with the ideas and me because I'm a blabbermouth come up with the rest. Let's see the next one. I said this picture. And that is my family. Oh my God. They were all there. Now that's my son, Aaron, in the middle, the little guy. He's only six foot five. And Ashley, his wife and my daughter, Alana, the blonde and the pose feature and grant her boyfriend. Let's see the next one. Okay, Hiro, who's this? This is Senator Wakai. And we are same age and he's out of Japan. He was adopted when he was a baby. So we both grew up in a Japanese orphanage. Oh, so he is a great supporter. Yes. So yeah, great supporter. We just talk story then. Oh, that's wonderful. Did he speak at our fundraiser? I don't remember German. No, he didn't speak. But I always invite him to come. That's wonderful. We are just, we just both turned 50 years old this year. So he's a great supporter. James, this is our James, who is there and so kind and generous to be there with us then. Patria, tell me a little bit about how you handle the situation. James is a quadriplegic, correct? Yes. And he has a great difficulty in speaking. And he comes, yeah, but he comes all the time, right? Yeah. Your kids, her too, is his home, isn't it? Yeah, I really am touched every time he comes over. A hero is someone who is really close to. And so everything like eating, heroes assisting him. Anything that James needs to do, hero is like right there assisting. And so there, you can tell there's a strong relationship that's developed over time. And that's a really special thing to be part of his family. Hero, is he like a son to you? Well, he's my buddy. Yeah. We're always hanging out. We have to wait sometimes to buses and we do talk stories. And one time I was pushing with my skateboard, skating together. No, kidding. Waiting for the handyman is sometimes. James has to wait a lot for the handyman, so. He has a very tough life, but this young man has such a positive attitude. I'm amazed. He's been to my year-in-charge program three times, I think. Oh, wow. Or more, three or four times, and he loves it. He loves the camaraderie because he's with other young people. And he now has become one of the seniors in our year-in-charge group. And he talks to them about what it takes to make sure you're structured and you have discipline and how to handle your passion and support and all that stuff. He really is an amazing character. Let's see some of the other photos. Go ahead. Oh, this is a long time ago. He must be close to maybe 20 years old now. Oh, wow. And he was not like a loy, up in the Kaneohe side. And that was the first time we did this. Organize kids to organize, go to the loy and take care of the taro event. This is a picture from when that first began. And that continues up till today, just this last Saturday. We had a group of youth visiting a loy on the Windward side. And there's something we all know that's really important about connecting with our nature and being able to see something grow and be a part of that. That's wonderful. This is, I think, one of the first. This is Li Keke. Remember Li Keke? Yes, of course. He spoke about 10 years old. And all boys are like about close to 20 years old. And this is the south for us all. We do now a day, four times a year, but then once a year event. And you have to do this all on your own. This is, I mean, these kids don't do this on their own. They have to do it through kids or two. So there's no opportunity for these kids to do it unless they do it through you. Yes, wonderful. Just wonderful, wonderful. These are, we want to include pictures of when we work with young people, oftentimes transitioning out of foster care. We like to create space to hear from them about what their thoughts are, what their dreams are, what things they are looking for, support around. So this is an example of the kinds of gatherings that we like to create and set up with our young people. Oh, wonderful. And these are foster kids? Yes, yes. This is like maybe seven, eight years old. So they might be in the year in charge program in the next group that we do? They are much older now. Oh, okay. So this is why we're here. We're trying not to show pictures of them. Because I don't recognize any of them. Well, we don't want to show pictures, current pictures of our young people. All right. Cool. Oh. This is the last day of the camp. We did, you know, from children from Japan to Hoku, you know, full of parents and family members through Tsunami. And then the campfire in the last day is these pictures. How wonderful is it? Sharon, we're both in Jewish. We have an expression that's called kvelling. Kvelling means you just feel so good when you see that you're helping other people. And what you guys are doing is just as good as what you were doing. Sister's empowering what I do. Well, you know, in the African-American world, we just say, stay woke and stay prayed up. I think this is absolutely amazing. I would love to be a part of this today. Well, you are going to be because once you know me here, all of the stuff that I do, it's really important. Because I think everybody needs role models. And one of the issues that we have at KidsHer2 and our foster kids program is they need people to talk to them. They need people that they can confide in. And we have Hero and Patria provide interns in my group and your in charge group who can help the kids just relate, answer questions, feel comfortable about talking about their intimate and issues that they have. And I think I always like to have a lot of guest speakers come and talk to the group at your in charge. So, yes, you will definitely be involved. And we have, I'd say, equal girls and boys now, right? Yes, about more boys. Right now there's a lot more boys. Patria, there's something going on at KidsHer2. We haven't even talked about it. Tell us about this new initiative in the foster space. So, we have this incredible space at the Kukui Center, which is right on the edge of Chinatown, and a large room. And we looked at that room and we looked at what Hero and I started talking and dreaming and considering what we've heard time and time again from young people in foster care about needing to gain work experience in a safe place. And this is what we decided to build based on all of that feedback. And we named this new project. It's called High Rising, H.I. for Hawaii High Rising. So, we are all about incubating young people who have ideas and want to learn design, want to apply those designs to a real market in a real retail setting. We are developing some customer partnerships towards that end and will be able to feature the products and ideas of young people. And it's something that we imagine will be like an entrepreneurial hub where a lot of different young people will be involved. A lot of different ideas will get hopefully launched in that space. And there's a lot of young people who are so creative and if they had access to a market, if they had access to mentors and access to safe places to test their ideas, we think they'll go and do all kinds of small businesses and pursue their ideas. Well, Hero, the market, tell us about the market. Who's going to be the market for us? Well, we're thinking like there's so many Japanese tourists come to Hawaii, as you know. And there's a Japanese Shinto shrine right behind, you know, our building. And there's always like every day 30 or 40, you know, trolley comes around. Trolley and buses come. Yeah, so they just go to visit, you know, Shinto shrine and they just wait. You know, that place becomes like one of the tourist destinations. So you have 1200 people a day. I don't know how many, but I've got 30 to 40. Yeah, go ahead. So I just, in the beginning, you know, we have to market, you know. So just first, I have to go there, talk slowly with them, invite them maybe, you know. But, you know, we are trying to communicate with a lot of publishers, you know, about, you know, the high-rising store. But the high-rising store that you're going to have is not just for the tourist market. The area around where your location is, there's an office building. There's a bank behind you. There's a lot of people that walk in that area. So there has to be some way for them to be able to come in and buy some of the products that you have. And also we're going to have a coffee shop. Yeah, it'll be little snacks down. Because there's no vending machine in our building and we hear from our co-workers all the time, oh, it'd be great if there was a place to buy coffee nearby. It'd be great if there was some snacks we could purchase. And there's tons of parking, too. So people can stop in, grab something and then just go. Wonderful. Wonderful. I think it's such an exciting project. I love the idea and you know, part of my program that you are in charge program is mentoring them into figuring out what they want to do. Not just doing their passion, but figuring out how they can best move forward in their life. How they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here's a way for most of them to gain retail experience, design experience, creativity. There's all sorts of things that they will gain by working in a location like this. So how many foster kids are we talking about? Well, as we launch it, we're looking at working real closely with about eight young people as we get started. And they'll be paid learning stipends for agreeing to come into our training. Wonderful. So we'll start small and we hope to grow. Well, I have two volunteers for you. We need them. Sharon Yarbrough, right there. Seymour Kazimerski, right here. We will be glad to help. And I know my wife, Sue, said she'll be glad to help, too. Oh, my husband, too. There, that's four volunteers. So we have four. Yeah, four volunteers will be glad to help. And I was looking at what kinds of skills and immediately three caught my eye for Citizen Park in Hawaii. Graphic design, marketing, and business planning. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. These are areas that young people, if they had a chance to learn. And even bookkeeping, we're talking about interior design a lot because we're designing our store space and they're helping renovate it. So there's a lot of skills that come to play. And as you can see, this is very typical of what we're all about, right? Helping each other. So thank you very much for coming on Seymour's World. This will not be the last time because I love talking about what you guys are doing. Sharon, Hero, Patria, just wonderful to have you. And thank you all for watching and listening. You're just watched another episode of Seymour's World, which I hope will give you a chance to think about helping others. Aloha from Seymour's World in Tiktok, Hawaii.