Editorial: Hawaiian learning hub lauded

It will be a 6,800-square-foot facility, but for Native Hawaiians and patron Kamehameha Schools, it represents much, much more.

Kamehameha Schools will be building a $10.9 million community learning center in Nanakuli, with educational programs focused on teens and young adults, aimed at a 2020 opening. It’s a needed resource, and should further the schools’ strategic plan of education for its rising generation of Native Hawaiian learners.

To be named for the late Agnes “Auntie Aggie” Kalaniho‘okaha Cope — who helped found the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, a crucial facility on the west end — the new center’s educational programs will target youths 16 to 24, and will include career development and work training. But it also will welcome all ages for “lifelong learning,” which is important to foster an inclusive and family-oriented educational concept.

That education-centered model is one that Kamehameha Schools must seed, and grow. The melding of native culture and modern realities must occur at the grassroots level, to foster the value of educational structure. It won’t always be easy: today’s status of Native Hawaiians include some dire stats, including disproportionately high rates of imprisonment as well as health problems such as diabetes.

But meeting the challenges, and bringing opportunities, into the heart of the Hawaiian-rich Nanakuli community is how it should start. The Cope Center, to be on 3 acres of leased state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property, will include a multipurpose room, with space for outdoor activities and gardening. Done right, many youths on Oahu’s west side, bringing along their elders, could certainly benefit.