Hawaiʻi Rising

Our first monthly community news episode! In each news episode, you'll get community headlines followed by two interview segments sharing timely updates from our partners from across all our grantmaking programs.

Our November 2025 episode features updates from two hui who demonstrate that community takes care of community:

Subscribe to our new Hawaiʻi Rising zine at hawaiipeoplesfund.org/podcast.

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

An interview about building up communities' capacity to heal their own lands with Kauʻi Lopes, Hannah Hartmann, and Kaʻimi Kaleleiki.

Earth RM is a Hilo-based nonprofit with a mission to develop, implement, and share accessible bioremediation solutions to heal communities, lands, and waters affected by environmental pollution. Bioremediation involves allying with microbes, fungi, and plant communities to break down environmental pollution. In this episode, the Earth RM team walks us through the bioremediation process with a current site and shares about an upcoming workshop in Kona for community members to learn about bioremediation.

Website: earthrm.org

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

An interview from early 2025 about community stewardship of ʻāina with Pualiʻi Rossi and Mason Chock from I Ola Wailuanui.

I Ola Wailuanui is a grassroots community organization formed and managed by Kauaʻi residents for the purpose of preserving, protecting, and restoring Wailuanuiahoʻāno and the environmental, historical, and cultural treasures there. Their vision is a living ʻili ʻāina for and by thriving kamaʻāina who are culturally rooted and engaged in the stewardship of Wailuanuiahoʻāno. 

Website: www.wailuanui.org/

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

A conversation about community restoration of place with Addison Bulosan of the Rice Street Business Association (RSBA).

RSBA is dedicated to fostering a thriving, just, and self-sustaining Downtown Līhu‘e by empowering local entrepreneurship, perpetuating Native Hawaiian culture, and strengthening community power. RSBA invites Kauaʻi community members to the annual Rice Street Block Party this coming Saturday, October 25 from 4-8pm!

Website: https://www.ricestreetbusinessassociation.com/

Phone: (808)-652-1442

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

Season 5 of Hawaiʻi Rising is here! The new season kicks off with a conversation about building support and acceptance for LGBTQ+ loved ones with Ryna Yamada and Cameron Miyamoto, the co-presidents of PFLAG Oʻahu.

PFLAG Oʻahu is a local chapter of the US’ largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them. PFLAG Oʻahu hosts a monthly support group and serves as a resource for families and community organizations, wherever they are on their journey to acceptance.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/PFLAG-Oahu-61569606350020/

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai’i, Hawaii

Announcing a new season of Hawaiʻi Rising featuring our 2025 grantee cohort, issue-area episodes, and new monthly community news segments, coming soon wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea is coming up this weekend! Join us at Thomas Square on Sunday, July 27, 2025. Each year for Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, two aloha ʻāina are honored for their activism and commitment to ea. The two 2025 honorees are Likookalani Martin and the late Abel Simeona Lui. In this episode, Uncle Liko shares about his life, music, and activism, from the writing of the movement anthem “All Hawaiʻi Stand Together” to his transformative time in South Kona during the Hawaiian Renaissance.

To learn more about Uncle Liko and Abel’s stories as well as details for this year’s celebration at Thomas Square, visit https://lahoihoiea.org/.

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai’i, Hawaii.

In this multi-grantee episode, Hawaiʻi Rising speaks with three organizations uplifting their communities through filmmaking.

First, we speak with Pua Case from Mauna Kea Education & Awareness and filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee about their feature-length documentary Standing Above the Clouds, which premiered last year. Building on an earlier short film with the same name released in 2020, the feature-length documentary follows three families of Native Hawaiian mother-daughter activists standing to protect sacred Mauna Kea from the construction of the massive Thirty Meter Telescope.

Next, we revisit our 2022 conversation with Vera Zambonelli, the founder of Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking. Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking is a longtime HPF grantee partner committed to advancing gender equity in filmmaking and advocating for women to tell their stories through film with an intersectional lens. HWF’s Reel Camps are filmmaking camps for girls and femme-identifying youth.

Finally, we turn to the important behind-the-scenes work of archiving film footage with the initiative Hoʻomau Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina. In this conversation recorded in 2023, we speak with Aunty Joan Lander of Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina and Emma Broderick from Puʻuhonua Society about this effort to catalog and archive over 6000 video tapes of footage shot by documentary organization Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina.

To learn more about these hui, listen to our full episodes with them:

23. Mauna Kea Education and Awareness: Standing Every Day for the Mauna

32. Hawai‘i Women in Filmmaking: Getting Reel about Social Change

48. Mauna Kea Education and Awareness: A Pillar for the Lāhui

56. Puʻuhonua Society: Hoʻomau Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

A reposted episode from 2023 about food access and resilient futures with Hulali Soza and Megan Fox from Mālama Kauaʻi.

Mālama Kauaʻi has been working to increase food production and access for a resilient Kauaʻi since 2006. They do this through a lens of resilience and sustainability, leveraging workforce and economic development efforts, partnerships, and innovative programs to grow community capacity. Their Kaua‘i Food Access Plan 2030 identifies land access and land-back movements as a key missing piece to the success of Hawaiʻiʻs future food system.

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

In our fourth multi-grantee episode, we hear from three organizations working to restore ahupuaʻa systems and perpetuate ʻike kupuna about ʻāina stewardship on three different islands.

First, on Molokai, we hear from Hano and Maile Naehu at Hui o Kuapā about their work to restore loko iʻa and grow a new generation of modern konohiki.

Second, we go to East Maui to hear from Jerome Kekiwi, Jr. from Nā Moku Aupuni o Koʻolau Hui, a group representing kalo farmers that restored taro-feeding streams from commercial diversions and continues to steward their waters.

Finally, we head to Kona, Hawaiʻi, with Loke Aloua at Hui Kaloko-Honokōhau. The kiaʻi loko of the hui dedicate themselves to preserving and advancing the natural and cultural resources of Kaloko Fishpond and protecting the ecosystem that sustains it.

To learn more about these hui, listen to our full episodes with each of them:

1. Hui o Kuapā: Restoring Fish Ponds on Molokai

25. Nā Moku Aupuni o Koʻolau Hui: When the Water Came Back on Maui

30. Hui Kaloko-Honokōhau: Stewards to the Realm of Kanaloa

Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii