 Aloha everyone. I am your host Winston Welch and I am delighted that you are joining us today for this out and about special show where we every other week explore a variety of topics, organizations, events, and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country, and world. As a disclaimer, any views or opinions expressed by me are strictly my own and not connected with any organization. But I'm here to highlight the special folks on my show, not me. So with that I am delighted that today joining me in the studio is Ivalay Kadina, community engagement coordinator from the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center. Welcome to the show and thank you for being my guest today. Thank you for having me. So it is a pleasure to have you here and I've been wanting to get you guys on the show for a while and so we're not going to have enough time today to explore everything. But tell us, what is the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center? Well in a nutshell I think it's the community's response to health disparities because of social situations. We are an organization that is built up of two nonprofit organizations that have been around for a lot of years. The LIFE Foundation, which started out in 1982, was our first, Hawaii's first response to HIV in the state and we were doing case management and prevention services for the entire county of Honolulu and capacity building for across the state and the Pacific. And the CHAL Project, which was the Community Health Outreach Workers Project, was Hawaii's first needle exchange, well the Hawaii's only needle exchange program. And we have been sister agencies for a very long time and we actually shared office space and when LIFE Foundation's Executive Director Paul Grossbeck made the announcement that he was planning his retirement, it seemed like the perfect time to join these two organizations and build on what we had both been working towards which is really addressing the social issues and the social determinants of health for marginalized communities in Hawaii. I love the way that you put that because it's serving an underserved population that's marginalized as well. Absolutely. And both of those organizations doing real good and you probably had a lot of overlap or some overlap in your clients, maybe not a lot of overlap. Many of our participants were sharing a lot of the different programs that we were offering between the two organizations and so it was a seamless transition for some and it actually made things more accessible to others. So it's been a perfect match and for the most part it's really going to be able to help the sustainability of this organization that serves so many different communities. And if people want to follow along for your website what is your website that they can go to for more information? You can find us at hhhrc.org. Hhhrc.org or they can google Hawaii Health Ampersand and Symbol Farm Reduction Center. Yes and we know that change is kind of difficult for a lot of people even for some of us change has been difficult. We're looking at it as growth and so even if you google Life Foundation or you google the Child Project, if you're comfortable with those former organizations you'll still find the information about Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction. Yeah I would say keep those up for a number of years because people still talk about you know DAIA or holiday mark. Oh yeah I still call it holiday mark. Right. So we have long memories. Showing my age right there. That's how you can tell who will do Hawaii one, what you call it. So some of your services that you offer and your your building is sort of uh what is the name of that building anyway or does it have a name? Well we've always called it the old gold bond building. Okay. I think it's now called 677 Alamoana. Okay but historically everybody just knows that it's the old gold bond building. Okay and it's just right in Kakaako Makai sort of right in front of the or Caddy Corner to the the medical to John Byrd's medical school is that right? We're a block away from John Byrd School of Medicine and we're right across the street from Salt which is yeah the new Kakaako um the social complex gathering place. Okay and you you offer a whole bunch a whole range of services there um that we will touch on today but I would like to um there's so many. Get into those so one of those your your main things and as as people can see on your website is that you have um an an outreach section and that that includes needle exchange or maybe syringe exchange you might call it. Right. What how does that work? The syringe exchange program is a very simple program it's first off it's anonymous. We know we need to make it accessible to the communities that that use injection needles and so it is an anonymous program. We have a process where our participants would sign up for a card and they would just be giving a number given a number and they use that number in order to exchange needles and it's a one-for-one process meaning you bring in one we give you one we give us five we'll give you five and it's really based around the the concepts of harm reduction we know that we're not able to change everyone's behaviors but we can make it safer and less risk by supplying the the things that can be harmful. So a lot of people say oh no I don't we shouldn't do that like let's say our current vice president right and so we saw a massive HIV outbreak in southern Indiana when I think if there wasn't a needle exchange it was shut down or it was HIV testing that was shut down and then folks that were injecting drugs suddenly they had an explosion of HIV cases so tell us what is harm reduction and how does that for people for the people that say oh no we shouldn't be promoting drug use I don't think you're you're not promoting drug use you're reducing harm or the is that right or how would you say that it's it's looking at the risks involved and seeing okay so this is the community and this is what they are doing and we're not trying to preach or trying to sell some type of dream that we can erase these issues off of the planet but if we know that these things are going to be happening can't we provide the safest methods possible to keep these people as healthy and living as well as possible and that's the concept is meeting the the participant where they're at no matter what they're doing in life the services are needed and if there's nobody here to provide the service then it could be it could cause more harm to that person and the community at large and the community at large and it's recent it's interesting that you brought up the Indiana situation because way before HIV was there a hepatitis C breakout was happening for a long time and it wasn't addressed and if those concepts of harm reduction and providing the services that could assist these people in their lifestyles there possibly didn't have to be that HIV outbreak because the signs were already there or even hep C and and I think that the the thing behind that is it's not only the right thing to do as humans is to help you know I often I'm on a kind of on a soapbox so we are our brothers and sisters keepers to and when we stop doing that then we see what we have now which is an explosion of homelessness and all those the ills because we said oh no I'm not not going to participate but the problem is real because then it affects everybody not just the individual but we do have an obligation to help one another we're a civilization and that's what we do and when we don't do that it causes more harm so we're reducing the harm but it's also the financially responsible thing to do if people can't look at it from the human perspective they can look at it as for every person who does not contract hep C or HIV or something else or is able in fact to get into treatment through your programs and become a productive member of society again then we're actually being really wise financially as well not just from the human level which is where we should really be with so many of the different programs that we're that we're doing including our law enforcement assisted diversion program um pretreatment substance abuse counseling HIV case management and hep C management all of these programs are keeping the state you know away from extra finances like incarceration and and medical issues and whatnot so yeah absolutely I agree with you it like all the all the way around it's helping the community but most of all it's helping the the individual themselves and harm reduction practices have been have been going on for so many years and it's proven that it it actually helps to you know relieve a person of their substance abuse issues over time yes so so they have a place that they can come in they can have some needle exchange they can have some counseling in a non-judgmental atmosphere and HIV and hep C testing as well HIV and hep C testing and by the way if you are over 50 if you're born before 1965 isn't it everyone is supposed to be tested for hep C aren't they yes the baby boomers the baby boomers until 65 like it doesn't matter who you are what you done go get tested for hep C and you can get that done for free yes at your clinic which is open basically or one of your testing hours so our testing hours in office is Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. that's at our 677 Alamona location and and we also do outreach testing so we provide mobile testing you can contact us through the website hhhrc.org or we have outreach workers that are take or visiting different parts various parts of the island every day Monday through Friday oh you do so you having people that even going out to Waianae or to the north shore or to Moeilele or if the if the call comes in yes okay and so you mentioned let's see not pre-prison but pre-incarceration or how did you phrase that what's that program it's called the LEED program the law enforcement assisted diversion law enforcement assisted diversion it's Hawaii's pilot program we I don't have a lot of the statistic information for for that's that particular program but it has been a big help with the the homeless population as well as the crime and that happens around Chinatown and is that tied into the drug court do you know is that how that works or is it basically saying instead of putting you into the prison program let's let's see if we can't help you admit your needs right here where you're at it's it's something similar to that but there's a lot of there's a lot of components that need to be in place it's a referral process and so the LEED officer would have to be on duty in order for that process to start happening I see so it's LEED meaning the program LEED okay so I can't call up and say my kid's being a brat here can you do something with it or something like that okay that's not what it's about maybe our next program maybe our next program and let's see so you've got also wound care which sorry I've didn't shut off my phone which is terrible you got wound care tell us about wound care what is wound care I will say that places like Kuakini hospital emergency room and Queens hospital emergency room and Kapiolani hospital emergency room would would applaud and cheer and standing ovation this wound care program Dr. Christina Wang she joined us well she joined the child project project and so she was part of the merge and she does outreach on Tuesdays and Fridays in the downtown Chinatown area and she meets the clients where they're at and wound care is a really really important part of staying healthy especially if you are houseless and she is a remarkable individual just a really great doctor and she started this pilot program of wound care and she you'll find her at Fort Street Mall and River Street and she changes the dressing on a lot of wounds and you see a lot of things like cellulitis and staff infections and things like that and those need constant care in order to heal and for a lot of the participants that we work with you know healing is not a really easy thing to do when you're out in the streets and so she goes out there to make sure that those things are clean and we've recently added a clinic to our office and so when she's not in outreach she she can be found in the clinic doing a wound care along with her staff is that funded hopefully by Queens or by some sort of grant from the state health department or something like that we do work through a few different grants and a lot of donations and I know that recently Queens Hospital donated some supplies for the wound care program and it diverts a huge amount of folks going showing up in the emergency room at their hospital I watched a presentation that Dr. Wang did recently and I think that it was I don't I couldn't say that the number but it is a significant number of money being saved by the hospital from this program okay which is why they're like sharing a wound care well it's become a really a really an angel to a lot of the emergent theorems you know and that's what it's all about is is your organization is exactly the kind that I like to highlight you're in or filled with people doing good for members of our community especially those who are down a downtrodden and and need some kind of loving care so we have to take a short break we will be back in a minute we are talking with Kiva Lei Kadena of the community engagement coordinator at the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center it's a lot it's a mouthful and we'll be back for more of the story in a minute so stay tuned. Aloha and Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday we invite you to listen watch for our mission of empowerment we aim to enrich and lighten educate entertain and we hope to empower again maraming salamat po mabuhay and aloha. Hey Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm going to keep on doing it so join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour we're going to talk about everything energy especially if it begins with the word hydrogen we're going to definitely be talking about it we'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman aloha. Aloha we're back we're live I'm Winston Welton this is out and about on the Think Tech live streaming network series we are talking with Kiva Lake Hedena from the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center where she is community engagement coordinator and this is a terrific organization doing a lot of good in our community helping people that a lot of people don't overlook overlook overlook and want to overlook and just kind of oh I don't want to deal with that and I don't know how to deal with that and you guys are right on the front line. I think a really big part of the dedication that our organization has is because we come from the community as well we have staff that are in recovery we have staff that are living with HIV we are we have staff that are formally homeless former sex workers you name it and you can find someone that's relatable to you in our organization and what that really does is it's inviting to people that have sometimes come very suspicious of of help and very suspicious of people that are reaching out and so we take pride in our life experiences and we use them to to to promote the things that we want to do for our community here in Hawaii so that's really important is that you that that your that your staff can relate to people and even if they're not coming from those specific backgrounds they're very certainly sympathetic people to to your clients that you serve and people that are walking in off the street and probably afraid just to even get an HIV test and you do offer HIV tests and it is the rapid testing so you get the results in about 15 or 20 minutes 20 minutes yeah it's a very simple process you come in you fill out a consent form and we just need a little prick on the fingertip and you'll get your results in 20 minutes we do a small little risk assessment to see what other programs you might benefit from with our organization including our smoking cessation and our prep program prep is a preventative medication what is prep tell us what prep is because people may not know what prep is pre-exposure prophylaxis and so what prep really is is i call it the birth control pill for HIV and for somebody who might be at high risk for exposure it's a daily medication that can be taken and it really prepares the body in case there was some type of exposure the body knows how to fight off the infection or the virus and um the virus dies off before it can replicate replicate exactly it's almost uh it's as far as i've seen it's it's as close as it can get to perfect prevention if people are regular with it there's been a couple cases i think that have been uh where it didn't work but most of the time it's uh it's an amazing drug and that is typically available at uh if you're have insurance it's probably covered by insurance here in Hawaii um and for people that can't afford it or don't have insurance do you have a program that covers them for that so our prep navigation program helps to set that up and so we don't only help people that get connected to prep we want to make it reachable to that person as well and so we have the process um we have staff that is able to help navigate through the application of insurance benefits whether it be through quest or through employment or um through private insurance and um and even if they decide they they don't want prep um we're still making sure that the community is connected to health care um and yes it's um it's prep is usually covered by private insurance and by quest um not usually but it is always okay um by quest and um it can be an expensive process and prep navigation can help find other avenues in order to make that as uh as you know that as easy as possible and again i think this is where the answer prevention is worth the pound of cure so if you don't know about prep just google prep and p-r-e-p um it's a it's a great thing that you've got you uh you offered this testing and some counseling and you mentioned um smoking in there because as i think we don't even realize but people think oh age is age is is the big killer but it's actually smoking is is the big killer still i think isn't it and not only that is you know we reached out into all of these different um lifestyle habits because we realized that um hiv was prevalent in smokers we realized that hiv was a high risk for transgender people we realized that you know substance use and injection drug use is um addressing the harm reduction in those areas is is prevention um and so it all kind of ties in together with really the all around health of a participant um and so we're really proud of the the hawaii's last drag program that's what we called it we thought it was a cute play on words for the lgbt community it is lgbt focused yeah um and uh yeah it's we offer a lot of tools and incentive and support around um smoking cessation we've recently been connected with substance abuse programs to help um get people started while they're in in drug treatment and so it's a good avenue to like kind of clean slate yourself so it's a really good um program that we've been we've been doing for like the last two years that is awesome and it's it's interesting because probably if somebody can stop smoking they can stop some other harmful behaviors too or start on healthier behaviors as well i found um being in recovery myself i found that um you get on that that that lifestyle change and that new design and you kind of want to like do everything and just you're like on this like it's this mission to like do well for yourself and so what a it's a great opportunity to kind of explore other ways to be healthy and smoking cessation is one of them yeah smoking cessation is one of them and uh yes so and and and smoking i think lgbt community is is like twice as prevalent for smoking isn't it the regular population or something along those lines i don't know the exact um data but but yeah there is a lot smokers okay so we're we're hawaii's last drag so as you go in there you have some maybe counseling or the patch or different ways to acupuncture i i liked the gum the most i so i was a part of the smoking cessation program myself okay um and my favorite um tool was the the gum because i needed to taste a cigarette and so it yeah but we have laws and jurors we have um there we the patch um cinnamon sticks because some people just need to hold something in their mouth yes so yeah is that is that free as a free program if people need to help with all of our programs are free we don't charge our participants um none of our participants need to spend money in our organization if they come for an h hiv test or a hepatitis c test it's all free right okay and uh then tell us about the kua ana project uh awareness kua ana project it's my shirt right there the kua ana project um so the kua kua ana in hawaii and it stands for older siblings so like a big brother a big sister okay and really it was it it's looked at as a mentor program um you know in the country 28 percent of transgender women will test positive for hiv those that's the that's the numbers and um when it comes to transgender women of color the numbers are much higher yeah um and we recognize that um improving the quality of life for transgender people would be a really important tool in in order to kind of reduce that harm around hiv um and so the kua ana project started about five years to go through grant and aid from the state and um we offer a lot of opportunities for uh personal growth and support around um legal documentation like the name change process and the gender market change process you know you supply someone with the tools to feel comfortable in their skin and feel empowered by their documents and by their personal surroundings um they're bound to make different choices when it comes to lifestyle um and so instead of say dropping out of high school maybe this person is going to go on to college because they've their gender marker is the same as their gender identity or their name is is the same as how they identify um it makes things a lot more reachable for a community that's that's been widely underserved in hawaii um and I guess I have a lot to say about it because I'm a transgender woman as well and and um and I needed that that help um with the name change process 20 years ago I needed that help with I just aged myself again didn't I no I needed that help with um understanding how to to complete the documents and and those types of things and so young trans people today and setting that up for them really gives them avenues to kind of explore other things in life including careers and um and higher education um reducing the harm around hiv and drugs and sex work and all kinds of things that can be harmful and we have so many so many lgbtq ia youth on the streets that are kicked out of their houses forced out of their houses and so they need that support they need that support and so so you're kind of a older sister mentor right and you got a whole walking them walking these people through um how to apply for um the name change process we can which can be daunting which which requires a lot of of um you know follow-ups and a lot of you know and support the emotional support emotional support um I not too long ago I went to a um a name change ceremony for one of our participants who actually had um this ceremony where he blessed his name in in the church around all of his friends and and everybody was there to support him and and and really marked the day um with significance and it was important to him so that he could um you know move on in his transition in his process and it's a really empowering thing to be able to self identify and then have others understand and see that and witness and support it and witness and support it yeah and I think that's a a perfect way to end um the show because unfortunately out of time but we could go on for hours we can and you will come back and be my guest again I hope in the future and that just that uh that support and and and real sense of aloha that you bring to your work obviously and and your coworkers do that and you're uh I really respect the work that you do personally and that your and that your coworkers do and that your organization does um I will give a shout out that we do have the AIDS Walk on June 30th you can find more information yeah at Honolulu AIDS Walk dot org or you can go to Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center where you can probably also somehow uh again and find Kiva Lay uh Kadena who has me there is at our community engagement coordinator who has been on our show today and I am so thankful that you come on the show I look forward to you to coming back and thank you for having us some more about this because you you you know you're doing such important and valuable work so we're a family of um 11th support there oh yeah thank you for that and unfortunately folks we are all out of time another fantastic organization that you have been able to hear about only on out and about think tech live streaming network series share this with your friends share this with your peeps that you love uh because that's what it's all about so you know what I'll see you here in a couple of weeks but uh share the aloha be kind to each other and I'll talk to you later thanks to our broadcast engineer Robert McLean floor manager Eric Callander Callander and you Jay Fajella our executive director who puts it all together aloha