Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 4, 1 April 2007 — OHA grantee profile: Kōkua Kalihi Valley [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA grantee profile: Kōkua Kalihi Valley

Editor's note: This is the first in a series ofi articles profiling past recipients ofOHA connnunity grants. OHA's Grants Program will be accepting grant applieations for the coming fiscal year from April 1 to June 30. For more information, eall 594-1972 or visit www.OHA.org. Born in 1972 with one fulltime executive director and four part-time eommunity aides on a $28,000 budget, this grassroots success story is an inspiration. For 13 years, they worked with volunteer doctors and dentists out of two renovated military surplus trailers in the parking lot of the Kalihi Baptist Church. Today, Kōkua Kalihi Valley (KKV) has an annual budget of more than $5 million and employs 100-plus full-time staff

working from six different loeations, and speaking 15 Asian and Pacific Island languages. KKV presently serves more than 6,000 Kalihi Valley residents eaeh year. Their main heahh center is open 10 hours a day, six days a week, and serves anyone regardless of their ability to pay. In 1975, KKV started the first shelter for abused spouses and children in the state, serving more than 800 individuals in their first year. From 1981 to 2005, KKV contracted with the state Department of Heahh to implement projects that included primary care, perinatal and family planning, and WIC. KKV's eom-munity-based Dental Residency Program was the first in Hawai'i and has brought six dentists who provided free services (estimated at $360,000) to low-ineome fami-

lies over the past three years. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Heahh and Human Services awarded KKV designation as a National Community Center of Excellence in Women's Heahh, one of only 12 such centers throughout the country. KKV continues to focus on preventive heahh care through

collaboration with other organizations and private individuals. Added to this is their goal to introduce culturally based projects for heahh care initiatives. As a result, the Native Hawaiian Historic Preservation Project (NHHP) was created to protect, preserve and restore Hawaiian cultural and archaeological sites within Kalihi

Valley. In December 2004, KKV secured a 20-year lease with the state to develop a 100-acre site for passive recreation and to perpetuate Hawaiian cultural practices through an educational, hands-on project. The project is intended to demonstrate that heahh care should be looked at from a holistic view of one's enviromnent. S

KAIĀULU • C0M MUNITY

Kōkua Kalihi Valley coretoker ond community liaison Solomon Enos tends to new growth in the valley. - Pholo: OHA archive