Four nonprofits that work to preserve Native Hawaiian culture will receive more than $500,000 in grant funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono announced Friday.
The four grants, which come from Native Hawaiian Library Services, were awarded to:
>> Bishop Museum: $140,104 to digitize and index a rare collection of mele dating from pre-Western contact to the early 1900s for its “Welo Hou: Building Connections to the Helen Roberts Mele Collection” project.
>> Hawaii Maoli: $128,569 to implement the Nana I Ke Kumu project, providing library research skills training for 40 Native Hawaiian students and Hawaiian resource database workshops for at least 125 educators.
>> Hula Preservation Society: $143,517 for its Kauhola Hou project that will help to digitally preserve an additional 700 treasured historical items dating back to 1890 as well as provide internship opportunities for Native Hawaiian youth entering the Library Information Science and Hawaiian Studies fields.
>> Papahana Kuaola: $146,177 to implement its Makaikai Mele a Moolelo project, which increases interest in reading through understanding and appreciation of traditional Hawaiian literature and the places to which they are connected. The program will serve over 300 students and teachers; 320 community members from kupuna service agencies and programs; and 50 families from Oahu, Molokai and Lanai.
$3.1M will fund UH-Manoa cancer study
The University of Hawaii at Manoa was awarded $3.1 million in federal funding from the National Cancer Institute for its Multiethnic Cohort Study, which focuses on understanding cancer’s effect on different ethnicities.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office announced the award in a news release Thursday.
“If we’re going to end cancer once and for all, we need to understand why different races and ethnicities seem to have varying susceptibility to cancer,” said Schatz, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. “It’s fitting that this announcement of funding comes around the 55th anniversary of President Kennedy’s speech committing to sending Americans to the moon. Ending cancer is our moonshot, and this funding takes us one step further in our pursuit.”
The study, established in 1993, is being conducted at the UH Cancer Center in Honolulu as well as the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. It examines lifestyle risk factors, especially diet and nutrition, as well as genetic susceptibility in more than 215,000 people primarily of African American, Japanese, Latino, Native Hawaiian and Caucasian origin.
