Aloha mai kākou,
ʻAha ʻŌpio, OHA’s flagship Native Hawaiian leadership and civic engagement program, concluded last month. After lying dormant for two decades, it was revived to cultivate the next generation of Kānaka ʻŌiwi leaders. For one week, haumāna from across Hawaiʻi and the continent immersed themselves in leadership, governance, and public service.
Programs like ʻAha ʻŌpio leave me hopeful, not because these young people have all the answers, but because they remind us that the future belongs to those who engage it.
At this moment, legal challenges threaten legacies entrusted to us by a princess who dedicated her inheritance to an educational future she would never live to see; a prince and statesman who crossed oceans and endured indignities to secure homelands and opportunity for a people facing extinction, carrying their voice and aspirations into distant rooms deciding their future; and generations of kiaʻi whose defense of valleys, bomb-scarred islands, and marine sanctuaries helped spark an aloha ʻāina renaissance and a fledgling OHA.
It can be tempting to retreat into frustration, cynicism, or resignation.
I understand that feeling. It surfaces when decisions about Hawaiians are made without Hawaiians by institutions that mistake authority for understanding – a pattern that persists despite decades of Native Hawaiian leadership, advocacy, and achievement.
But moments like these invite more, not less, participation. What are we prepared to defend? What responsibilities do we owe the lands, institutions, and opportunities entrusted to us? Who possesses the character and courage to help lead us there?
The wellbeing of Native Hawaiians will be shaped not only by who serves at OHA, but by who serves throughout government, education, business, nonprofits, and community life.
Whenever I wonder whether one voice can matter, I think about how much of what we cherish today exists because someone before us decided theirs did.
A loko iʻa restored. A heiau protected. ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi spoken by a new generation. None resulted from a single victory, election, court case, or leader. They exist because people chose to engage when disengagement was easier and persisted when success was uncertain.
This summer, I witnessed young people dedicate their time to learning how government works, how advocacy changes outcomes, and how leadership demands both courage and humility. If our ʻōpio can dream, engage, and step forward with purpose, so can we.
To every Kānaka running for office this election season, my sincere mahalo. Our ʻōpio are watching and learning from your example.
And to those whose kuleana is to vote – or who choose not to – your agency is no less consequential. The future our ʻōpio inherit will be shaped in equal measure by our engagement and our absence from it; by the choices we make and the ones we leave to others.
For their sake, may we be as faithful to their future as those who came before us were to ours: the generations whose burdens became our opportunities, leaving us not only the power to choose our leaders, but a future in which we, too, might be entrusted to lead.
Mahalo nui,
Summer Lee Haunani Sylva
Ka Pouhana Kūikawā
Interim Chief Administrator
