 Think Tech Away, civil engagement lives here. Good afternoon, and welcome to another episode of Pacific Partnerships in Education. I'm your host, Ethan Allen, here at the Think Tech Studios. And Pacific Partnerships in Education is a show about how various educational issues deal our dealt with in the Pacific, how different groups come together to solve the unique challenges, to take advantage of the unique assets of the Pacific Ocean and the islands and the people around there. Today, I have two guests with me, our Josie Howard and Jojo Peter, both from We Are Oceania, program director and community liaisons. The leader of the outreach. Community outreach, OK. So let's just jump right into this. And tell me a little bit about We Are Oceania. I've heard of the group for some years, but I don't have a really deep sense of what they do. So We Are Oceania is actually an initiative to start up a organization by my clinicians, for my clinicians. And one of our first projects is to open a one-stop center, which we did in 2015. Right now, we have three years goal to stand up as a 501C3. We are right now a program of partners in Development Foundation. They are our mentors in helping us to spin off to become a 501C3. Focusing on servicing my clinicians in the area of education, community building, capacity, advocacy, and social services. And one of our, I would say, one of our major program right now, our service right now, is our referral program. Our co-coa that we help with enrollment of the Obamacare and also the state co-coa program. We, and then this ongoing youth summit that we also have. Excellent, excellent. So you're involved with helping the populations of Micronesians from all the Micronesia writ large, I assume, sort of assume, who are relatively new in some cases to the islands here and help them sort of navigate their way, figure out how they get social services, legal services, educational services, medical services, all these things that are so different here than they are in the remote islands. Okay, well, that's very good, that's very much needed. We talked a little bit about this before, Joe-Joe. The issues we're dealing with are a group of diverse cultures. But they, as a group, are typically quite different from the modern westernized culture we find here in Honolulu. And what are some of the big issues that people run into? Well, I think one way to look for those issues and that are particular to these groups, although they are very diverse as a group, is to look at the common issues that they have. Sure. And those common issues will come from things like their shared immigration status, for example. Like the COFA, or Compact of Free Association, sort of labeled or maybe doesn't have clear labeled as you should have on what the immigration status, what to call them in terms of their immigration status. And then what does that mean when you call certain people like this alien group or this immigration status? What does that mean in terms of what you're eligible for or what you can do and what you cannot do? So one way to look at that, yes. So we have this diverse, highly diverse group that has come through recent years, but their issues tend to be crystallized around or sort of like came from the immigration status that they have. So that's why we look at it. And let me also just back it up. I think it was, there was a Micronesian focused conference that was held at the University of Hawaii in, was it in 2008? 2008. Was it specific voices? Yeah. And one of those recommendations that came out and also task force after task force recommendation that the state held in terms of community collaboration and one of the biggest or common recommendations is that there should be a one stop center. Right. And it makes sense, right? It's difficult enough sort of coming from a relatively small isolated island as many as the residents do to a major urban center like Honolulu. Much less finding your way around here, dealing with things like traffic is just bad enough, right? Much less having to go to multiple places and go to one place for housing and one place for medical services and one place for, you know, you want. It really is a very sensible idea to have a sort of one stop place where somebody who speaks the language knows the culture, who understands some of the challenges, has maybe been through them themselves and sort of walk you through the process and say, oh, here's really how to navigate this particular maze. Yeah, excellent. So I think one of the ways that, you know, and for lack of, you know, better means to fund the idea, it took a while to, you know, get it off the ground. So, you know, Josie and I and a couple of other people that've been talking about this for a long time. And I think all of our Micronesian groups and everyone, you know, who has worked in the community knows the values of having a one stop center where people can go to find out about the services but also the service providers can go to link up with, you know, with the quote unquote clients, you know, for our citizens who need the help. Right. In very culturally appropriate manner because I think, and linguists, you know, bearing the linguist barriers as well. So we understand all of that, things that we have to address in terms of like cultural barriers and how to proper engagement. So we try to practice that at the center, so. Excellent. I mean, just to add to what Jojo had said, I think Hawaii is such a, you know, place where groups of people have migrated to and, you know, for many different reasons and also with, you know, globalization, there's no places on earth that is left kind of untouched anymore. And because a lot of people are like, why are you migrated here? Why do you guys have to come out of your places? So, you know, peaceful, you have your food there but, you know, as the world or as the world become westernized and maybe more, what do you call that word? Yeah, globalized, where you depend on money. Now people are seeking opportunities. And so, like Jojo explained this whole idea of the one stop and our mission statement where we are Oceania is to help my clinicians navigate success while honoring our diverse heritage. So the keyword is navigating success, to be able to navigate success while, you know, abroad or while leaving the comfort of our home and what we usually are used to and know how to navigate. So I think when we talk about issues, I would say the greatest need is for our people to learn how to navigate this new life. And we hope that we are Oceania is that place or that, you know, system that can help. Excellent, excellent. And it needs to be done. There's a, because I knew you touched on this earlier, Jojo, that the issue of migration or emigration is not terribly clearly spelled out that for some of our viewers may not understand COFA, the Compact of Free Association, set up a rather special relationship among the freely associated states of Micronesia and Marshall Islands and Palau with the U.S., right, where citizens from those three countries can come live freely in the U.S. work. They don't need a special visa. But I think that that relationship is born out of a long relationship between the islands, the U.S. and the United States. After World War II, the United States realized the military strategic values of the islands and wanted to have that strategic value advantage over any other, over any of its enemies, potential enemies. Back during the Cold War, it was the Russians. Now it's beginning to look more like a very schizophrenic threat, but also still some remnants of that Cold War and so forth. So they sat down at the table and they said, how can we continue this relationship? Because we have, we understand that we have mutual needs that we can't mutually take care of. So people focus more on this immigration, open immigration aspect of it and they said, wow, no, this is, you know, that's a lot of things. There's a lot involved there, that's true. But also if you look at the other side of the equation, what do my clinicians give up and brought to the table for this? We allow the United States to use in perpetuity its land, its air, and its water, and basically the future in terms of its military value. The United States has control over all of that. And again, people know that that's what they're giving up. But the fact that we have this mutual relationship and the closest place to, you know, the United States at its homeland security, the core of its homeland security, that is an ally of the United States is that big area in the Northern Hemisphere called Micronesia. Right, right. And Guam is there, it's a U.S. territory. Commonwealth of Marianas is there, it's a U.S. Commonwealth. State of Hawaii is right here, like within its immediate proximity, and other U.S. interests in the Southeast Asia. Sure. And like, you know, yeah, but economic trade lines and all of that stuff. So all of that area figured prominently into the U.S. strategic military and economic strategic area. So that's what we give to the tables. And what we get out of it is just that open opportunity. Nothing special, just the open opportunity to be able to travel here, get our work on our own, you know, send our kids to school, pay taxes just like everybody else, and be able to enjoy life like everybody else. No special treatment, just that open immigration, because that's what we give up during the... So sometimes that gets lost in the discussion, but I think people need to have more common understanding of those things, and that shared history of, you know, mutual responsibility for each other's needs. Right, and that's sort of the issue of shared understanding. I think that's really key. I mean, there's learning that has to happen on both parts, right? The Micronesians who come here who must learn the systems here and how very different the educational system, just use one example, is from the educational system, say on one of the more blocks. It's just regarded very differently. Culturally, it's regarded differently by the families and schools. That relationship is very different. But equally, it's important for the people here to understand in a much more nuanced way, I think, the vast array of cultures that Micronesians actually bring. They come from a very diverse set of things that the Marshallese are quite different from Yappies, Chukis, all these Chamorros. So all these different groups have their own customs, their own values, their own traditions, and not always parallel, right? Well, I think one of those things that has been celebrated in Hawaii has been the incredible amount of diverse culture. Absolutely. Diversity of culture and the strength of tradition. Hawaii and people have very strong tradition and culture and customs then. Parallels also the Micronesian culture and traditions. And we saw that as an example to how much we share these with the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the fact that there's both knowledge system are able to merge together to revive that Polynesian cultural, I mean, no, navigational system and as part of this larger Native Hawaiian Renaissance, we're so proud of that. Just watching our brothers and sisters, Native Hawaiians really flourish in language, in customs, in culture and the navigation and they're able to take it one step further and take it globally. We share it in those celebrations. Absolutely. Because of what we bring to the table and what we understand the Native Hawaiians also give us as people that are in there, on their land. Right, and Hawaii, as you were saying, is this rich intermingling of cultures with a lot of the traditions get maintained but even within families, it's so intriguing to me here. You'll see families will say, well, my Hawaiian family celebrates the holiday this way and my Japanese family celebrates it this way and my Filipino family celebrates this way. And they recognize and honor these diverse traditions. So we're gonna get into this in more depth in just a moment but right now we have to take a quick break. Josie Howard, Jojo Peter are here helping me dissect some of the partnerships in the Pacific Island's education and I'm Ethan Allen. You don't think that Hawaii will be back in one minute. Aloha kakau. I am Andrea. I am from Italy and I've been studying and working here in Hawaii for more than three years for my PhD. Hawaii is home to a truly fantastic community of middle and high school students and did you know some of them are currently out there right now using their free time to invent new quantum computers? And did you know some of them are exploring cybersecurity and the new frontiers of robotics? I am just always amazed as I talk to them with science fears. Oh, but there's more. Did you know that these students are coming here on Fintech, Hawaii to share their story with us? Come and join the new young talents making way show and discover how these students are shaping our future. Starting on February the sixth, every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Only here at Fintech, Hawaii. Mahalo. Yeah. And you're back here in Pacific partnerships and education. Our host Ethan Allen with me today in the Fintech studios are Dr. Josie Howard and Jojo Peter are my guests from We Are Oceania. And we were talking before a little bit more about some of the broader issues of Micronesian culture and the interesting assets it brings to Hawaii and the differences sometimes that people face when they move here. But I really wanna look now at this upcoming event that you guys are sponsoring, putting on, organizing. I'm not quite sure what your role is. The Micronesian Education Youth Summit. If I've got that name correct. Can you tell a little more about what this is, what you hope to accomplish? Well, the Micronesian Youth Summit is really a platform or a space to provide our youths living in Hawaii to experience empowerment especially to like to be inspired by others who have been successful in the community. And with college students, we have three areas or three themes or workshops that are critical to the youth summit, which are one is career readiness. The second one is college readiness and the third one is community readiness. The theme of our youth summit is navigating success. And that is really derived from our cultural value of our way of life, our way of life and how do we survive? Navigating success in my language as a Chuggis of the island, it's called Palu. And Palu literally means to be able to be aware of your surrounding. If you are aware or to be aware of your surrounding so that you can navigate success. And that's the same term that they use for a navigator, master navigator is also the same term used as navigating on the ocean. But in this youth summit, we are using that theme as navigating success in life. And so we believe that with our struggles, with our challenges that we're faced with here in Hawaii, especially our youths, we have very high number of youths who are dropped out from high school. A lot of them face different kinds of challenges, discrimination and just really struggling academically and socially. And so one of the first thing we realize when we look at education program is to first build our youths up. In order for us to be effective in later on projects or later on interventions, we must create that space where they feel themselves and they can be who they are and they can feel that cultural empowerment. So that's really the idea behind this youth summit, the goal behind the youth summit. It brings a lot of youth together and helps them see themselves not as minorities, outsiders, but as a force to be reckoned with, a cohesive group of powerful, smart people who are able to do things. And another thought behind that empowerment is that a lot of the times when we focus on the negatives, then all you know is the negatives. And a lot of our kids are born and raised here, a lot of them have not been gone back home and so they have not really seen our culture and what the richness of our culture and the strength of our culture. And so that's another reason why we want to have this, create this space for our youth so that they can totally experience that. It's a one day, it's probably like an hour, two hours, experiencing something, but at least it's giving them an opportunity. So that, yeah. A little taste of some things that are really central to their heritage. Yeah, that's excellent. It needs to happen. This diversity that we've spoken of several times is what I think gives Hawaii a lot of its vibrancy and its richness, its strength, right? It's pulling all these different sort of ideas and backgrounds and values and traditions together, helping them sort of play off each other, not trying to homogenize them all into meaningless nothing, right? Trying to keep the unique flavor, unique strengths of each. And like Josie said, for the most part, with our youth that are born and raised here, or the one that have come here when they were still young and they've grown up, there's a little of a disconnect, a disconnect from that empowerment, that heritage that you need to stand on and speak and say, this is who I am. This is my culture, and therefore I'm ready to share. And I'm ready to share in yours because I'm ready to give you what I have. And like Josie and I just sort of took it for granted because we were born and raised in the islands and we were cultured in all of the island values and way of doing things. And so when we come to classrooms in the West, we have something to bring to them. And that's the kind of learning that we want our kids to have. Learn something about your culture because it's who you are. And you cannot share in other people's culture without having something to bring to the table because it's sort of continuously to marginalize yourself and put you in a sort of a deficit corner where there's no empowerment. So I know a lot of my nephews and nieces and grandkids, they want to learn something to hold onto because when they go out there, they want to have something, you know. Instead of all just this kind of like floating around, now nothing to anchor to, you know. And your navigation theme for this is a really very appropriate one then because again, the Micronesians were master navigators. The Europeans when they arrived in the islands were amazed. These people were traveling vast distances, no compasses, no sextants, you know, but they understood they were able to read the waves, read the skies, read the stars and navigate very well, very effectively and better in many cases than the Europeans. And parallel to that in this modern society is what you guys talked about, the globalization and the sort of destroying of culture or indigenous culture because of globalization and westernization and all of the other. So, you have that wave or that continues to marginalize, you know, young people from, you know, because if you look at it, I mean, these kids nowadays, the most of their time is spent on, you know, things like, you know, iPhone and many other things and but if you ask them, you know, how is that related to your culture? There's this sense of like awkwardness and disconnect. You try to get them to think like how can your culture or what you have in your culture connect you to do these things so that you don't lose it? You don't lose yourself in the process, you know? Our canoe has been around for many, many thousands of years just like the native Hawaiian canoes. There's a reason why they thrive and that is because we pay attention to it. You know, many of our cultural values thrive because we pay attention to it and we apply the modern technology to it but we don't lose it in the process. Right, and there are various groups now, for instance, trying to modernize the canoes and make traditional design canoes. Continue to build on the design of that canoe which in its core is thousands and thousands of, you know, years of, you know, cultural ingenious and, you know, diversity and of knowledge light to it to carry it forward so we don't lose it. Excellent. Many of our kids are like, they're challenged and we have to help them. So who is this, who is this youth summit for? When is it, where is it? Okay. So the youth summit is for our middle schools and high school students. It's, we're focusing on my clinicians but it's open to anyone. Last year we had participants that were Samoan, Tongan, Filipino. So we, I mean, we welcome everyone. It's going to be at the Iswa Center, the Jefferson Hall or what they call the Aimen Hall from 8.30 to 3.30 on Saturday, March 17th, 2018. Excellent, excellent. And there'll be speakers and presentations and workshops of various sorts. I assume you guys will be there being both role models. Yes, so from speakers to volunteers, they're all like, I mean, active and very successful members of the community. We're gonna have speakers that will, you know, represent different areas. We also have the students from UH and we're welcoming students from Shamanat from HPU to volunteer and help with, you know, the either speaking or serving lunch or scoring students, welcoming students, registering students. It's important to have more accessible role models. Younger. But it also is symbolic value for us is to bring our kids to college. Absolutely. To that campus. Help them see that. We have the lowest enrollment of any ethnic group, you know. The Micronesian students don't really relate to the University of Hawaii. It has this huge imposing campus like Josie and I are alumni, the alumnus of the alumni of that school. But there are very few others who, and our kids kind of see this university as this thing that is kind of out of reach. But we wanna, the message is just any other place if you can be, if you put your mind to it. And I think a very important message is that, like for both Josie and I, we come from very remote areas. No, I don't think he ever imagined that he would be sitting here. I never imagined I'd be sitting here. But I believe that if the two of us can do it, then any other kid can do it, no matter where they come from, whether they have money or no money, whether they're smart or not smart, it's all about striving. It's all about work hard. Thank you so much. And our kids are very smart. I must say this. At this age where they are and where we were, they were much smarter than Josie and I were at this point. Yes. Hard to believe. You two are both very smart people. We're gonna have to wrap it on up. Josie, Jojo, thank you so much for being here. We've been talking about Pacific partnerships and education and we'll be back in two weeks for another episode. I hope you'll join us then.