14th Annual TCBES Symposium Program

Pelika Andrade

A native Hawaiian born and raised on the island of Kauaʻi, Pelika Andrade is a founder and Executive Director of Na Maka Onaona, a Hawaiʻi based non-profit, and an extension agent for the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program. She has a long history working with Hawaiʻi communities throughout the archipelago as a community member, hoaʻāina, and researcher. For the past 15 years, she has been developing alternate approaches to monitoring Hawaiʻi’s watersheds and supporting implementation of management strategies that support ʻĀina Momona: healthy, balanced and thriving communities.

PhD Research:
Pewa: Ajoining of our past into our future; a reconciliation of indigenous literacy and its role in Aina Momona explores the healing journey of Hawaiʻi communities through the lens of ʻĀina Momona (thriving and productive communities), while offering an analysis of impact from a collection of pewa (concepts and tools) that were created to support the healing of our people through reconciling narratives of indigenous literacy. This study examines an interpretation of ʻĀina Momona, how that interpretation has contributed to recalibrations and resettings of other concepts and ideas that contribute to in a momona, how these recalibrations have led to the development of pewa (concepts and tools) that were created to support ʻāina momona, how implementation of these pewa have in turn challenged the narrative of indigenous literacy, and finally an analysis of the impacts these pewa have on ʻāina momona through this reconciliation of indigenous literacy.

Drew Kapp

My story began through my Ukrainian ancestors ni the foothills of the magical Karpaty, the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe, and also in Germany, and continued in the cities and woodlands of Massachusetts and Connecticut where I grew up. I was a university student in Montréal in Canada, Firenze in Italy, and la Ciudad de México, and graduated from the University of Connecticut with degrees in Italian and Spanish. I worked for an international student exchange organization in Washington DC and at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts Library before moving to Honolulu to earn a degree in Geography at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

I spent many years working in university libraries, including in the Map Collection at UH Mānoa and at Mookini Library in Hilo, and assisted with the Atlas of Hawaiʻi project with special attention to Hawaiian place names. I began teaching Geography at Hawaiʻi CC and UH Hilo in the late 1990s, and have since had the privilege of residing in the verdant, volcanic uplands of Puna, where Keaʻau and Kahaualeʻa meet within the ʻŌmaʻolala Forest. While teaching, I helped to coordinate the new Keaholoa STEM Program at UH Hilo, supporting Native Hawaiian students in the sciences, and I also earned a degree in Hawalian Studies from Hawaiʻi CC. I am a member of the Unukupukupu hula ʻohana, a product of the Uluākea faculty development program, an advocate of UH Hawaiʻi Papa O Ke Ao, of ʻāina- based learning, of ahupua'a research, of pāmaomao exchanges with indigenous communities of Turtle Island and Oceania, and and serve as an Assistant Professor in Geography at Hawaiʻi CC.

I support sustainability initiatives through my work on the Lā Honua Earth Day Committee, and academic sustainability committees, councils and certificate programs. I cherish the partnerships I have developed with community organizations from every moku of Hawaiʻi Kuauli, as they helped realize positively transformative learning experiences for my students. I am grateful to be involved in the well-being of our Hawaiʻi cultural-environmental communities in my role as a settler aloha ʻāina, and inspired to be among people who are dedicated to learning and growing.