Save a kid, One day in May, a group of children arrived at Papakolea Community Park and were disheartened by what they saw. Graffiti -- tens of feet long and nearly a yard tall -- curved snakelike paths all over their two basketball courts.
revive a community
Hard-earned community pride
Join the club!
tastes extra-sweet in Papakolea
Art workshopBy Joleen Oshiro
joshiro@starbulletin.comTwo months later, the kids were still shooting hoops on swear words as the city and various community organizations tried to iron out just who was responsible for cleanup. Fed up, a group of boys called the Champions -- members of the Boys and Girls Club Papakolea After-school Program -- decided they had had enough of waiting.
Earlier in the week, Charlotte Kaluna, the after-school program's youth development specialist, had talked to the Champions about doing community service. Let's clean up a highway, she suggested. But the boys had other ideas. Why go somewhere else when their own park needed cleaning? they reasoned. No matter that the city had warned the children not to tamper with the costly, delicate court surface. Two months of waiting for someone else to take care of their park was long enough.
That evening, after the program had ended for the day, the boys clandestinely regrouped at the park. Along with Kaluna, the six youths, armed with buckets, special cleaners and soft bristle toothbrushes (so as not to harm the surfaces), put their noses to the court and got to work. At around midnight, some of the families came to check on the boys. They found their young Champions still working those soft-bristle toothbrushes.
Then the families began to help, working alongside until well after the sun came up the next day.
"That was a trip!" Kaluna says. Up until that day, families coming together was almost unheard of.
"Our community started to open up."
HARD-EARNED COMMUNITY PRIDE tastes extra-sweet in Papakolea, where socioeconomic challenges and a consequent negative stereotype have been a heavy burden for generations. The community, comprising more than 300 Hawaiian homesteads from Papakolea, Anianiku and Kalawahine, spreads from just below Punchbowl through the area across Lincoln Elementary School and up behind Roosevelt High School. For 10 years the Papakolea Community Association has worked on making their home a family-oriented place once again.
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A hip-hop class keeps members of the Boys and Girls Club Papakolea After-school Program up on the latest dance moves. Front to back are Keoni Brown, 6, Geno Contemplo, 8, Natasha Hoover, 11, Daniel Teo, 8, Pomai Fola, 10, Sunshine Hoover, 11, Gabriel Brown, 11, Kona Hew-Len, 11, Jannell Castillano, 15, and Travis Contemplo, 14.
"The first generation are our kupuna (elders), our great-grandparents, who were cultural-minded and spoke the language," Kaluna says. But after that, things got tough for the people of Papakolea. The next generation was the first generation of Hawaiians who didn't speak the language, the ones who began losing touch with their culture. By the third generation, who came up during the '60s, drugs and violence were running rampant in Papakolea. The attitudes of past eras are a challenge to overcome, something the fourth generation of residents are wrestling with today.
"We've got men, young men, who hang out by the bridge that's at the entrance to Papakolea," Kaluna says. "They've either dropped out of school or have just graduated. They don't know what to do with themselves; they have no goals. And unfortunately, most of them are fathers."
Just as problematic is the enduring stigma of coming from a place with a bad reputation.
"Just the other day, I was walking through Downtown with some of the kids, and they started talking to someone along the street. When this person found out the kids were from Papakolea, he took a step away from them.
"These kids have to carry the burden of a stigma they had no part in creating."
IN RESPONSE to such goings-on, the after-school program, which caters to 120 youths, is designed to combat drugs and alcohol. Individual specialty groups are tailored to meet specific needs:
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"The after-school program has become the community's heart and soul," says Charlotte Kaluna, center, youth development specialist for the Papakolea program. Kaluna runs the program with her cousin, project coordinator Donnie Hoover, left. Thanks to volunteers like dance teacher Tracey Jones, right, the program is able to offer classes by experts in hip-hop, hula and athletics.
>> The aforementioned Champions introduces boys ages 11 to 16 to nontraditional activities and roles. For example, Kaluna says, the primary activities for boys in the community are football and playing ukulele. Within two weeks of participating in Champions, her boys were asking to learn violin, drums and piano.
"Now, they want to visit babies in the hospital," Kaluna says. "They want to learn how to care for babies who are premature, ill or addicted to drugs.
"I want a male nurse or female doctor to tour us for that," Kaluna adds, characteristic of how she is constantly thinking of one more way to enrich each project the children take on.
>> The female counterpart to Champions is STRENGTH, an acronym for Sisters Tenaciously Reaching Effective and Noble Goals Together in Harmony. Designed for girls ages 10 to 13, the group focuses on self-esteem and puberty issues. The STRENGTH program offers everything from a fun hygiene and beauty course to awareness about serious issues such as teen pregnancy, date rape and computer predators.
"The girls in our community grow up tough, tomboyish, so there are major issues when, all of a sudden, their bodies change," Kaluna says. "We try to show the girls that it's OK to be opinionated, independent and feminine."
>> The after-school program also offers a Discovery program for children 9 and younger, a Torch club for ages 10 to 12, Leaders in Training for teens and a teen drop-in center.
When Leaders in Training assessed SAT scores for schools that served Papakolea, they didn't like what they saw. So they held a fund-raiser and, with the proceeds, bought 120 books. Then the youths went door to door in their neighborhoods and gave them out.
"The kids come up with the ideas themselves," Kaluna says, beaming. "It's an honor for me to be with them."
>> The most organized and demanding group is the Multimedia program, which involves no less than a three-year commitment. Small wonder, with six areas to learn: video production, stage production, journalism (both television and print), radio broadcasting and computer graphics. Two "core" areas, as they are called, are covered per year, and two projects are produced per area.
By the time the youths exit Multimedia, they have compiled portfolios of completed projects, certifications and a resume. And once they have discovered where their interests lie, schools and program staff use that information to provide high school, college and career guidance.
Multimedia has its roots in what Kaluna had thought would be a one-time video project. The youths wrote, story-boarded, directed, edited and produced a public service announcement about alcohol that aired on the Hoike public access channel, which serves Kauai, Molokai and the Big Island. In the process, they took a Videography 101 course and earned certification from Hoike.
When that project was finished, the group wanted to continue, and went on to produce four more PSAs now airing on 'Olelo (Oceanic's public access channel) as well as on Hoike.
Much of Multimedia's responsibilities are shared among a group of officers who research, learn and then run the lessons of the various core areas.
For example, some Multimedia members are learning about visual art, which until recently entailed just pencil drawings. But this summer, the Pacific American Gallery invited the students to classes run by exhibiting artists. Since June, Multimedia members have received instruction from three Hawaii artists.
One of the artists was Hokule'a canoe builder Rocky Jensen. After his class, Multimedia leaders "came back to the program and taught the other kids how to make a canoe," Kaluna says. "It may not have looked like the ones Rocky makes, but they knew how to do it."
A year ago, when the after-school program first opened its doors, Kaluna asked the Multimedia kids how many felt they could achieve their dreams. Not one raised a hand. Then she asked if anyone thought they were as good as kids outside Papakolea. Not one hand. Now when she asks the same questions, all the hands go up immediately.
"Being able to say 'I can make it' is a different kind of self-declaration," she says. "It proves to them that they can succeed at whatever they put their mind to."
IN A COMMUNITY that had been rife for so long with the stresses that drugs and violence bring, the people of Papakolea often hesitate to extend themselves toward one another, always fearing the worst. Unintentionally on the part of the after-school staff, but to their joyous surprise, the program is continually succeeding in eroding barriers among the parents.
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A group that plays together stays together. At the end of the day's activities, kids from the Boys and Girls Club Papakolea After-school Program give a cheer.
"We're constantly having presentations and award ceremonies," Kaluna says. "We want the parents to have a personal investment. So the families must come together.
"This is a place where the families can gather on neutral ground, for the children. When they come, there are no defenses up, and we see parents who would never come together talking to one another.
"Through the kids, the whole community is changing."
On the basketball courts today, large sections of graffiti still snake along the surface -- one night with toothbrushes could only remove the most offensive markings. But what remains has been transformed from a source of violation to a symbol of pride.
"The recreation center is literally in the center of the Papakolea community," Kaluna says. "The after-school program has become the community's heart and soul."
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The Boys and Girls Club Papakolea After-school Program welcomes children from all over the island. Come join the club!
Staff members Donnie Hoover, community coordinator of the program, and Charlotte Kaluna, youth development specialist, advise boys, girls, young children, teens and multimedia groups, helped by volunteers who teach sports, hip-hop and hula.
The after-school program was created a year ago when the Boys and Girls Club joined with Kula no na Poe Hawaii, an educational nonprofit arm of Papakolea Community Association. The program is an extension club of Boys and Girls Club's Spalding Clubhouse in Honolulu.
Papakolea's program runs year-round. Hours during the school year are 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. for children and 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. for teens. During the summer, doors open at noon.
To enroll your child in the after-school program, or to share skills and resources, contact Hoover at 282-2170.
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At Pacific American Gallery, ceramist Stephen Wong, in aloha shirt, shows students his technique for carving into clay. With him are, from left, Ward Popoali'i, Kona Hew-Len and Sunshine Hoover.
Nonprofit gallery
teaches children an
appreciation of artThe nonprofit Pacific American Gallery, established to promote emerging Pacific artists, offers a Keiki Arts Program for disadvantaged children.
The gallery's artists serve as mentors, helping children cultivate an appreciation for art, develop artistic skills and better understand how cultural heritage inspires creative expression.
Children from the Boys and Girls Club Papakolea After-school Program have participated in three workshops at the gallery, and took with them different lessons from each artist.
Hokule'a canoe builder Rocky Jensen "taught the kids that in art, there is no wrong, only effort," says Charlotte Kaluna, youth development specialist for the after-school program. Hiko'ula Hanapi, a silk screener, told the group a story, then silk-screened a piece of art onto T-shirts for the children that encompassed the whole story. "There's so much relevance to that one piece of art. They wear the shirts with a lot of pride," Kaluna says.
Ceramist Stephen Wong had a total hands-on approach. Kaluna recalls with awe how Wong picked up one of his pieces on display in the gallery and passed it around.
"Underneath, I saw the price tag said $750! But Stephen said if the kids dropped it, it was OK, that he'd just make another one. Art is a living thing, to be experienced, he said."
Wong believes art is invaluable to children because it offers them a positive way to express themselves.
"Art is something they can do that makes them feel good, and it has no restrictions. Through art they can create something they can be proud of," he says.
To find out more about the Keiki Arts Program, call the Pacific American Gallery at 533-2836.
Joleen Oshiro
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