Kapuaokalani Kaaua

NAME Kapuaokalani Kaaua

AGE 45

TOWN/MOKU 

Kalaoa Mauka

ISLAND Hawaiʻi Island

SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE 

@kapuaokalanikaaua

NOMINATED BY Visa Castillo

Leadership Category Culture

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

I am the kumu hula/loina for the Papahana Unuiti at Ka ʻUmeke Kāʻeo Hawaiian Immersion Public Charter School which services our east Hawaiʻi keiki from preschool 3 to grade 12. 270 keiki in all that comes through my classroom. I am also the kumu hula for Hālau Unuokeahi which has students on Hawaiʻi Island and on Oʻahu which practice environmental sustainability through the kuahu practice of hula. The Oʻahu component was born as an extension for our māhū community to investigate and reignite their kūlana in ritual spaces through hula.

Another component of the hālau is my papa kālaina which I teach the protocols of carving to extended community members throughout the paeʻāina and lastly my community ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi classes which is taught weekly to reignite our foundational language.

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

One phrase: Ancestral preservation and sustainability of a people

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

A cultivator. This is a huge quality to me. Someone who can cultivate and create mass movement to positives outcomes be it through content, and I do my best to emulate this type of lawena in my teachings My kumu Tangarō is my muse of how one is able cultivate a community through practice

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

My kūpuna, all of them. They ones that are gone, living, and the ones yet to be born

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

The re-ignition of our people.

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