We named the Wai’anae Economic Development Council (WEDC) as a recipient of the Sony Create Action Grant to support their mission in expanding economic opportunities for Native Hawaiians and Waiʻanae Coast residents. As recipients of the grant, WEDC receives $50,000 in cash to continue and expand the organization's work, $50,000 in Sony Electronics products to support their action plan, and this Sony-produced short film telling their story.
The cost of living in Hawaii is very expensive, and it’s become increasingly difficult for Native Hawaiians to stay. “For our practitioners to be able to keep our culture alive,” explains Ka’iulani Kauihoa, a curriculum developer for WEDC, “I mean they are the ones holding all the secrets of our culture and all the knowledge. They need to be able to live in Hawaii.”
Nainoa Logan, who is the organization’s vice president of programs, has a passion for teaching financial literacy and entrepreneurship to Native Hawaiians as a way to help them create sustainable revenue streams. “I think because so many people were concerned about losing culture, it was just all about preservation. The blinders came on and it was just preservation. Instead of, ‘How do I sustain myself with the culture?’”
Citing the Hawaiian proverb, Logan says, “We learn from many schools.” He continues, “And in order to do that, we needed a platform to be able to tell all of these stories.”
What they created was a website, AlohaExperts.com, that offers a variety of pathways for Native Hawaiians to earn income. “One pathway is online course modules, online education,” explains Kauihoa. “Another online pathway is, I guess it would be kind of like an AirBnb experience, but for practitioners, where people can book for their next workshop or next presentation. We’ve partnered with HawaiiVerse, who is an online store I guess you could say. And they’ve offered to create a section just for practitioners where they can sell the items associated with their practice.”
The website is an all-in-one shop that creates revenue streams for our practitioners, and one of WEDC’s goals is to create one million Hawaiian millionaires. “And why that’s kind of crazy to some people,” explains Kauihoa, “is one, because there aren’t even a million Hawaiians. But that means we need to have generations of Hawaiians who are millionaires.”
The organization takes a deep look at what it looks like to sustain Hawaiian culture financially. “And intertwine sustainability and perpetuation of culture, intertwining with each other, and then finding wealth and abundance from there,” says Logan.
WEDC is expanding economic opportunities for dozens of Waiʻanae Coast residents. "The Native Hawaiians are the knowledge holders," adds Kauihoa, "and WEDC aims to really uplift them, honor them, and show them that they can generate funds with integrity from the sacred knowledge that they do have."
Learn more about the Wai’anae Economic Development Council (WEDC) at https://thewedc.com/.
See more of our past Create Action winners at alphauniverse.com/createaction.
