Waiwai: Food as a Vehicle for Connection

The Waiwai Health Fellowship is a summer program for youth entering their junior year in high school to recently graduated, with a focus on expanding their understanding of community health and healthcare.

During our six weeks together from June to July, Fellows explore health and healing through a community lens, guided by the principle that health is fostered through connection. The program includes in-person site rotations through various KKV programs, such as Hoʻoulu ʻĀina, Roots, KVIBE, Pacific Voices, and Maternal Child Health. Fellows also participate in virtual sessions where they examine a range of health topics and then share their reflections about the class lectures, discussions and experiences. They are encouraged to use these reflections as an exercise of articulating and communicating their thoughts and feelings in a personal and meaningful way.

For the first three weeks of the program, Fellows were provided with a food sovereignty bag of fresh, nutritious, locally grown produce and locally raised meats, which were sourced from small farms across Oʻahu and intentionally prepared by the Roots Food Hub at KKV. The assignment was for the Fellows to cook a meal using the ingredients and to use food as a vehicle to connect more deeply with their families, culture, traditions, language, stories, and of course, the land. With their permission, we invite you to read a sample of their food reflections here.

As part of the Waiwai exploration of connections - to place and kinship with land and to community, the Fellows spend time at Hoʻoulu ʻĀina to mālama ʻāina (care for and heal the land), learning to grow traditional foods of the Pacific Islands. While at Roots, they sharpen their kitchen skills and discover how preparing and sharing meals helps to bolster Hawaiʻi’s food sovereignty, strengthen cultural identities, and nurture waiwai (abundance and wealth in all its forms). Some Fellows are shocked to learn that 85 to 90% of the food in Hawaiʻi is imported. Others now have an awareness of where food comes from and how it is produced. This brings a much deeper appreciation for local farmers using indigenous agricultural methods to work towards an environmentally sustainable and food-secure future for these islands. In these ways, the Fellows cultivate a stronger sense of responsibility to create a healthy food culture in their families and communities.