A federal agency on Monday awarded $3.9 million to two professors at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa who are tasked with improving the health and well-being of Native Hawaiian students in public schools.
This is the second round of funding for the initiative I Paʻa Ka Huewai Pawehe, ("So that our prized water gourds are made firm.") In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education awarded the project its first grant, consisting of over $2.8 million.
Erin Centeio, a professor at UH Mānoa's Department of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Science, underscored the importance that schools have resources for social and emotional learning.
"When we train our teachers around cultural trauma, it's really about helping them understand the trauma our students have endured," Centeio said in an interview. "And by having our teachers understand more about their students, they're able to help their students develop their own social and emotional wellbeing."
"Because if the teachers don't understand the students, the students have a hard time learning," she continued. "But if the teachers can understand where the students are coming from and help them build their social, emotional learning, students will be able to self-regulate."
Centeio will work with Professor Kuʻulei Serna of UH Mānoa's School of Teacher Education to improve physical education, advance the overall well-being of Native Hawaiian students and help address child development.
The funds will go toward 15 additional school complex areas on Hawaiʻi Island, Maui and Moloka‘i. The initiative already includes four complex areas on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi.
The last set of funding enabled the professors to partner with New York-based nonprofit Hip Hop Public Health to create HYPE Hawai'i, which combines hula and hip-hop dance moves to help energize children.
Centeio said the program had local artists create unique music tracks based on moʻolelo (stories, myths or legends) and Native Hawaiian traditions that coincide with physical activity.
"By the end of the second round of funding, all of the tracks will have these resources to go along with them to help teachers not only give their kid a chance to take a break but to be physically active," Centeio said. "What we know is if kids are sitting for more than 60 minutes, their brain is not able to learn as well if they get up and have a little physical activity beak and then sit back and learn."
With the new grant, Centeio said she would partner with the Kōkua Foundation to establish ʻāina-based learning and gardening at elementary schools.
"That will be a nice addition for our schools that have been focusing on health and wellness over the last three years, to add that as an opportunity for their students," she said.
