Farrington High School seniors J-Fow Eaz and Marcelo Osonis, who grew up in public housing in Kalihi, say KVIBE, a program where they learn to fix and restore donated bicycles, has provided them a safe place to go after school.
“It provides me wisdom from the staff,” said Eaz, 17. “They teach me a lot. It provides me a better example.”
The two were among 200 or so Kalihi residents, young and old, who participated in the inaugural WE Are Kalihi Unity Walk and Celebration meant to restore pride in the community and bring about positive change.
Eaz explained what the event meant to him, saying, “People celebrating mixed cultures, coming together happy as a community. This is just the beginning.”
Kim Golis-Robello was beaming as she looked upon the crowd.
“If we even got one community member it would have been a success,” said Golis-Robello, a co- coordinator of the event, who is with the nonprofit Parents and Children Together. “We wanted to bring the community together, which makes it so special.”
She estimates about 150 kids and adults walked from three different starting points through the community holding signs expressing Kalihi pride, ending at Kaewai Elementary School on Kamehameha IV Road, where others joined in a lively celebration.
There they enjoyed games, music, line dancing, sports and donated treats including popcorn, Spam musubi, pizza and drinks, in and around the school cafeteria.
One of the WE Are Kalihi movement’s goals is to change people’s attitudes to counteract the negative portrayals of Kalihi on social media, according to Lorrie Kanno, the Kalihi program director for Weed &Seed Hawaii, in which law enforcement officers work with business and community members to reduce crime in their neighborhoods.
“So it takes changing people’s perspectives and grounding them back to what really matters,” she said. “It really comes down to people and how we treat each other.”
Kanno and Golis-Robello said they turned to members of the community to find out what they thought could be done to change attitudes. Kanno said they suggested doing “something that’s positive … because unfortunately it’s the negative stuff that captures everyone’s attention, but there’s so much good going on.”
Saturday’s event was a way “to show the community how much we love Kalihi.”
The community enthusiastically asked for a big fair at the end of the walk, and that’s what they got.
Dozens of organizations — governmental, private, nonprofit — contributed to the fair by their donations, participation and coordination.
Bryan Engichy, 17, another Farrington senior and member of KVIBE (Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange), smiled ear-to- ear when sharing what he enjoyed about the day’s festivities. “The people. The hospitality here. Everybody’s my friend. The music. I love it,” he said.
Paulina Perman brought 25 elementary-age children to the event and was helping them fill out forms so they could get an ID card at a Honolulu Police Department booth. One fourth grader asked “Mama Pau” whether she could get some popcorn. And when the event was nearly over, Perman had to gather them up to take them home in a van she uses to pick them up daily after school at both Kalihi Valley and Kaewai Elementary schools.
Perman is an after-school program teacher and community coordinator for Pacific Voices, under the umbrella of the nonprofit Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services, a federally qualified health center serving the area’s largely Asian and Pacific Islander population.
She often takes the students out to weekend events where they perform cultural chants or songs, often translated from Chuukese or Hawaiian into English, the common language of the students from households speaking Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Marshallese, Lao, Samoan, Tongan, Filipino and Hawaiian.
Nuki Makasini, a young program coordinator for KVIBE, which also is part of Kokua Kalihi Valley, said, “We’re using bikes to navigate the world, like urban canoes.”
The activity promotes physical activities and mental health.
He said the group of about 20, mostly boys, gathers at a location near the Kalihi Police Station. Downstairs is where they repair and refurbish bikes and upstairs is where they meet.
Two University of Hawaii students manned a booth where they handed out bags of popcorn. The students, along with Tai-An Miao, a UH professor of psychology, are part of an interdisciplinary program with the UH Office of Public Health Studies. It uses, among others, the program “Sources of Strength” to provide preventive mental health and coping skills to prevent suicide.
Also among the participating nonprofits was the Susannah Wesley Community Center, which has after-school programs providing homework help, enrichment activities and hot meals, and also has an alternative learning program and a home-based parenting program.
