By Dawn Morais
On a rainy Friday evening a few days ago, 17 people gathered for two hours in a meeting room at the Campus Center on the campus of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Their mission: to gather their thoughts about what ails Hawai‘i –and then articulate what needs to be done to address some of the most pressing issues facing the people who live here.
Piʻilani Akina was still getting over the shock of what she has seen since returning to the islands after a few years spent living in Aotearoa, as the Maori called what we now know as New Zealand. She expressed great outrage at the misery she sees playing out in the number of houseless people living on the sidewalks of Honolulu, and in the level of disrepair and neglect and obvious need in the community. “Why aren’t they rising up?” she asked. “People are expressing their frustration in cities around the world. Why are we keeping quiet?”
This group, however, was there because they have no intention of keeping quiet. They were there because Young Progressives Demanding Action Hawaii had organized a workshop “Writing for Impact” to help them make their voices heard. One by one, each laid out the issues that mattered to them most: from women’s autonomy over their bodies (Alani Bagcal from Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii) to visitation conditions for families with loved ones who are incarcerated (Jordan Smith ), to criminal justice and sentencing reform (Destiny Brown), to houselessness (Lena Mochimaru and Ryan Catalani) to money in politics (Albert Lanier), to healthcare for all (Rachelle Robley). Others like Foo Pham and Dawn Kubota were particularly concerned about the urgent need for affordable housing.