Ashleigh Loa

Name

Social Media Handle

Nominated by

Age

Town/Moku

Island

Leadership Category

Ashleigh Loa

@shlgh

Madelynn Sodetani

Pearl City

Oʻahu

Education

Civic Engagement

Share with us a little about yourself and what you do.

I am a relatively new executive director of a local non-profit in Hawaiʻi. I work with many interfaith churches and our members work together to address the root causes of social justice issues in Hawaiʻi, such as affordable housing, kupuna care, environmental justice, and community safety. As the executive director, a big part of my job is to organize our members and the broader community to participate in the legislative process to push for equitable change. We identify and empower grassroots leaders to be change-makers.

Why is the work that you do important to you? The community?

The work I do is deeply personal to me because I experienced the lack of affordable housing myself. I also worked at a homeless shelter a few years ago and realized that there was a bigger issue, and I wanted to be a part of the solution to increasing the supply of affordable housing for all. Many of the clients I worked with at the homeless shelter worked two jobs, but they still couldn't make ends meet. I, like many other Native Hawaiians, have considered leaving Hawaiʻi. The work I do is important as I (strongly) dislike seeing so many of my family and friends being displaced and moving to the continent because living here has become so out of reach for us. I am so proud to be a young Native Hawaiian woman in this position, empowering others at the grassroots level to participate in public education and civic engagement to achieve goals that benefit Native Hawaiians.

Share with us the qualities of leadership you admire and how you express those in your life.

I admire leaders who are compassionate, humble, honest, collaborative, self-aware, and ambitious. I hope that I express these qualities in my personal and professional life. I do my best to connect with people on a personal level as that is a quality that is important in community organizing. I frequently seek input from volunteer members and my staff at the organization I work at. Furthermore, I am constantly thinking about how to make sure the work we;re doing is equitable and I try to seek out those with lived experiences to guide the work we do.

Who has inspired you to do the work that you are doing?

I was inspired to do this work because of my past clients from the homeless shelter I worked at. They are the reason I decided to change my career path from business finance to the work I do now. I saw how hard my clients were working, but they still couldn't afford a safe, decent place to live. They are the reason I wanted to do more and be a part of bigger solutions. A majority of my clients were COFA migrants, Native Hawaiians, and Samoans. I felt like it was unfair to see so many people struggle when they weren't given the same opportunities as others. (P.S. Mahalo for asking this question. It's a nice reminder about 'why' I do this work :))

What is one word that describes something you are excited about for the lāhui?

Movement!

What is one word that describes a pressing issue that is facing our lāhui?

Housing