Ke Kula Kamali‘i Hanaiaulu, Windward Community College’s Hawaiian immersion child care center, is helping students complete their collegiate education by providing free child care services to those with children.
The center, which has been offering its services since 2019, gives priority to those who are either enrolled or proficient in the Hawaiian language, some of whom might also be single parents, kupuna or people already in the workforce seeking certifications.
“We’re trying to make our college a friendly space for Hawaiian immersion students that are starting to graduate in a lot larger numbers,” said the center’s director, Puanani Kama. “It’s a population of parents who need to go back to school or go back to work, to make moves to be a little bit more successful and make a little bit more money so they can stay in Hawaii.”
While the program prioritizes children of students with Hawaiian-language backgrounds, it is also open to children of the public and school faculty. The idea for its creation was prompted by a grassroots movement of WCC students who began voicing a need for child care services, particularly for their children of infant and toddler ages, Kama said.
With the high costs of typical child care services and infant child care averaging about $1,800 a month, juggling school while parenting can seem nearly impossible, particularly during a child’s infant years, she added. And while preschools and schools exist on the Windward side, few serve children 3 or under.
“So moms are having a child and then maybe another child two years later,” she said. “That’s like six years of not being able to go to school because they’re taking care of their babies at home.”
WCC also had begun to experience increasing amounts of students with Hawaiian immersion backgrounds, a population whom the college has dedicated initiatives to better serve.
With these factors in mind, WCC established the Hanaiaulu program in 2019 with the help of a five-year federal grant. Since then its success has helped the college garner additional grants over the years that have both sustained the program and expanded its services.
In 2020, WCC was one of eight community colleges in the nation selected to participate in the College Success for Single Mothers Project, which aims to increase data collection on parenting students, particularly on those who are single mothers, according to the National College Transition Network website. The project initiated meetings between Hanaiaulu staff and student parents, to learn about the challenges they were facing and how to address them.
One of the significant results derived from these meetings was the creation of a student parent lounge in 2022. There, student parents can be accompanied by their children while they study, whether or not their children were accepted into the Hanaiaulu program.
The College Success for Single Mothers Project also led to the creation of an online student parent dashboard that presents WCC’s findings on the school’s student parent population. Much of the information included has helped the school advocate for specific resources tailored to its student parent population, Kama said.
As the school becomes more familiar with the needs of its student parents, Kama added that she’s not only noticed parents succeed in their college education, but also attain a sense of accomplishment while feeling like their specific needs have been recognized and addressed.
“It’s a big movement of students who never thought that they could finish school,” she said. “But what seems so impossible, really is always possible. … We just help them to make it possible.” Kama said.
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Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
