If a group of Hawaiian educators hadn’t met in 1982 to develop the immersion concept of Punana Leo , Kili Namau‘u is certain the Hawaiian language would have been lost. “For many years, teaching Hawaiian was banned in public schools; it couldn’t be spoken or taught,” said Namau‘u, who is of one-fourth Hawaiian ancestry. “By the mid-1980s only about 500 people in Hawaii could speak Hawaiian, and most of them were elders.”

For the past 24 years, she has been director of Punana Leo o Maui, where she, her staff and the keiki speak only Hawaiian all day, every day. When parents come to the preschool, they are expected to speak Hawaiian when they are around the children.

Namau‘u didn’t begin to learn Hawaiian until 1992, when the first of her three children became a student at Punana Leo o Maui. All of them wound up being educated via the immersion method from preschool through the 12th grade.

“I learned Hawaiian along with my children, but young minds pick up language much better and faster,” Namau‘u said. “My kids are all fluent in Hawaiian; in fact, my two daughters are now teachers at immersion schools on Maui.”

Punana Leo o Maui was started by a small group of families who heard Hawaiian immersion preschools were opening on Kauai, Oahu and Hawaii island in the mid-1980s and wanted their children to have the same opportunity. They put on a fundraiser and concert, called “Kinohi (Beginning),” in the spring of 1987 to launch Punana Leo o Maui in a classroom at Wailuku Baptist Church (now Valley Isle Fellowship) that November. (The school moved to its current location at Kaahumanu Church, a quarter-mile down the road, in September 2000.)

This year’s 30th annual fundraiser, which was renamed Ho‘omau (“to continue, to persevere”) in 1988, will feature food, awa (kava) tasting, made-in-Hawaii crafts and a children’s area offering Hawaiian games, water play, snacks and lunch. Cultural practitioners will demonstrate fishnet making, tattooing, lei making, lomilomi massage, poi pounding, bamboo printing, traditional medicine and more. Kala Baybayan, a Punana Leo o Maui parent and crew member of the Hokule‘a, will give a talk on celestial navigation.

Items in the live and silent auctions include feather lei, lau hala hats, Hawaiian quilts, pahu (drums) and hula and ukulele lessons. Headlining the always packed concert will be multiple Na Hoku Hanohano award winner Kekuhi Kanahele and Kalani Pe‘a, whose debut album, “E Walea,” won this year’s Grammy Award for best regional roots album.

Kanahele and fellow Na Hoku standout Keali‘i Reichel were Punana Leo o Maui’s first teachers. They will be honored at Ho‘omau this year along with Hokulani Holt, a respected kumu hula and Hawaiian culture and language specialist who was the school’s first director.

Don’t miss the memorabilia tent, which will chronicle the history of Punana Leo o Maui and display plans for Hale Hou (“new home”), a 1.68-acre site in Wailuku where new facilities for the school will be built. The complex will include a resource center that will welcome the community to learn the Hawaiian language and participate in the perpetuation of the culture. Namau‘u expects groundbreaking to occur in two to three years.

As usual, Ho‘omau will be a day to celebrate the growth of Punana Leo o Maui and the resurgence of all things Hawaiian.

“People want an authentic experience when they come to Hawaii,” Namau‘u said. “At Ho‘omau they can make a lei; eat local favorites such as poi, laulau, shave ice and Spam musubi; enjoy Hawaiian music and hula; and watch their keiki play konane (checkers). How often would they get to see a live auction conducted in Hawaiian?” ‘‘O ia no ho‘okahi kaukani!’ Sold for one thousand dollars!’”

The theme of this year’s event is “Ho‘olaukanaka i ka leo o na manu”: “Life is made happy by the voices of many birds.”

“Punana Leo o Maui’s mascot is the ‘alala [Hawaiian crow],” Namau‘u said. “It was on the brink of extinction, just like the Hawaiian language, for a long time. In the past 30 years, however, great strides have been made to revive and expand the use of our language, and, like the ‘alala, it is exciting and encouraging to see it making a comeback.”

About Punana Leo

Punana Leo means “nest of voices;” just as fledglings are fed from the mouths of their mothers, so the Hawaiian language is fed to 3- and 4-year-old students from their teachers. From the moment the children enter Punana Leo schools, they are immersed in a learning environment that stipulates “Hawaiian language only.”

Thirteen preschools, including Punana Leo o Maui, are operating on Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, Oahu and Kauai under the nonprofit umbrella ‘Aha Punana Leo. They are the world’s first accredited early education programs being conducted through use of an endangered indigenous language (the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium, winhec.org, issued the accreditation).

The schools’ goals are 1) to create a supportive environment where students and their families develop the ability to communicate effectively in the Hawaiian language, understand and appreciate Hawaiian culture and values, and participate confidently in contemporary Hawaiian society; 2) to ensure kindergarten readiness in areas of age-appropriate social, intellectual and perceptual motor skills; and 3) to drive and inspire change to ensure a living Hawaiian language in Hawaii and beyond.

— Adapted from ahapunanaleo.org

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.