MA‘O Mā‘ona ‘Auwai and Workforce Consortia Convening Support

HACBED has been contracted by MAʻO Organic Farms to support their Administration for Native Americans (ANA) grant project by providing planning and facilitation support for their Māʻona project, specifically the ‘Auwai Consortium and Employer Hui Focus Group Convenings. MAʻO Organic Farms is focused via this grant to build “a future of māʻona, of plenty, by connecting youth and land through the daily practice of aloha ʻāina, empowering youth to succeed in college and secure sustaining careers, and growing organic produce that yields individual and communal vitality”.  HACBED is currently supporting MAʻO with this 3-year project by providing the following support:

• Support staff in building capacity and convening the prospective Employer Hui.
• Facilitate engagement and pilina of prospective employers to co-design a mechanism to communicate on-farm skills acquisition.
• Support staff in building capacity and convene, engage, and strengthen youth, ʻohana, and social networks.
• Facilitate youth and ʻohana experiences to strengthen pilina and to inform continuous refinement of project activities.  

With HACBED’s support, MAʻO hopes to increase matriculation of youth from the Waiʻanae, ʻEwa, and Waialua regions into post-secondary education through their ‘Auwai programming efforts. Additionally, they would like to “improve the wage-earning capacity and access to enriching careers with employers aligned with MAʻO in the pursuit of pono economic development and the creation of thriving lāhui”.