AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Above, from left, Clayton McKalvia, Wendellynn Kilia and Brian Tamamoto gathered Thursday at Susannah Wesley Community Center.

Wesley center offers second
chance to many teens

School dropouts work toward their
diplomas in a nurturing setting

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

Wendellynn Kilia was an eighth-grader on Maui when she was raped and became pregnant.

Thirteen-year-old Kilia dropped out of school because she would have had to move to Oahu to attend a school that could accommodate teenage mothers or join the Hawaii Job Corps. Two years ago, she ended up on Oahu anyway because her son Zaren, now 4, needed medical treatment.

Now 18-year-old Kilia is getting a second chance. She attends a competency-based high school diploma program at the Susannah Wesley Community Center in Kalihi, part of a youth employment program that helps at-risk youths finish school and find jobs.

The program is a federally funded partnership of Susannah Wesley, Human Resource Solutions, Hale Kipa, Kualoa-Heeia Ecumenical Youth Project and Parents and Children Together.

After she gets her degree in December, Kilia plans to finish a nursing degree at Kapiolani Community College.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Waialae Paseuth played pool. Teens say they enjoy the center's family atmosphere.

Her husband, Clement, 19, is also in the program and will start training to be a carpenter in August.

Kilia said the other people in her class and youth counselors have become her friends and family. "They help a lot. I think I wouldn't succeed (without them)," she said. "I want a good life for my son and for my husband," she said.

Other participants have come to the Susannah Wesley Center because they could not survive in a normal public school setting.

Clayton McKalvia, 16, dropped out of McKinley High School because he had fallen too far behind to catch up.

"I was sort of going downhill in my schooling already, so this was a second chance for me," he said.

Waialae Paseuth, 17, said he had headaches that prevented him from waking up early to go to school. He still has the headaches, but the smaller, quieter atmosphere is better for him, he said.

Marcus McGuire, 19, graduated from Waianae High School in 2001 but had difficulty finding a job. He said the federally funded Youth Employment Program, offered at the center through Human Resources Inc., helped him to learn how to be responsible and independent.

Now a courtesy clerk at Daiei in Pearl City, McGuire still comes to the community center to sit in on the competency-based courses, where he said he's learning things he didn't in high school.

Part of the draw is social, he added. "It's kind of a close-knit family."