• Pull together to find solution • Tax marijuana and implement minimum age Pull together to find solution Each year — in locations such as Kapa‘a Armory, Kapa‘a High School, Kaua‘i High School, Waimea High School, Kapa‘a Middle School, Chiefess
• Pull together to find solution • Tax marijuana and implement
minimum age
Pull together to find solution
Each year — in locations such as Kapa‘a Armory, Kapa‘a High School, Kaua‘i High School, Waimea High School, Kapa‘a Middle School, Chiefess Kamakahele Middle School, Waimea Canyon Middle School, and Hanapepe Armory — more than 400 youth and community members change their lives and create new positive opportunities for themselves thanks to the Paxen Huli Ke Alo About Face! Family of Programs.
I know this to be true because I witness it firsthand. It has been my honor to serve as the Kaua‘i program manager for these programs, which have been serving our communities for the past eight years.
Since its inception in 2003, the About Face! Family of Programs have educated more than tens of thousands of learners across Hawai‘i, from Kaua‘i to the Big Island. Of those, more than 94 percent have achieved at least a single-grade gain in the core tested areas of Reading and Math. In 2010, we placed more than 3,500 Hawaiian teens in high-interest jobs through the Summer Youth Employment Program.
On Kaua‘i, our small but effective team of four site managers, with more than 16 instructors and support staff, not only deliver a variety of much-needed work-readiness, academic and life skills training, they also serve as positive role models in our community and provide a safe learning environment for both our young and adult participants.
But that may be about to all change.
After March 31, our programs — and others like them — will vanish. Proposed budget cuts by Gov. Abercrombie threaten to eliminate these critical services to youth and adults who need them the most.
Yes, it is crucial that the Governor continues to work toward reducing the deficit and ultimately balance Hawai‘i’s budget, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of our young learners. Our students are Hawai‘i’s future, one that we are putting at risk, as Gov. Abercrombie’s administration plans, we cut more than $80 million from critical human services over the next two years.
Programs such as ours provide essential services for our Kaua‘i community and beyond. Our educational services provide learners of all ages with the confidence, support, knowledge and skills to pursue — and realize — meaningful futures. In many cases, we intervene to detour our participants from less desirable life paths onto those that instead will benefit their families, communities, and ultimately all of our Hawai‘i.
Our annual per-participant costs are a fraction of another potential outcome — juvenile or adult incarceration — that could emerge as an undesirable alternative to our programming. Indeed, our programs provide Hawai‘i with a precious resource: academically and socially responsible individuals who exhibit strong work skills and ethics and who willingly give back to their communities.
All of that for the per-participant cost of about the price of a couple specialty coffees per day.
We understand the state’s fiscal challenges. And we further agree with Gov. Abercrombie that we must explore federal funding options, engage in public-private partnerships and invest in new economies involving clean energy and green jobs. But we shouldn’t do so at the expense of our island’s children and their ohana that need our support.
We implore the Governor to consider a more measured plan, one that involves the continued funding of human services programs beyond March of this year and through at least the first half of 2012. Such an approach would provide the Governor and his staff with the necessary time to critically and fully explore a variety of options to increase the state’s revenue without rushing to eliminate these highly essential services.
Hawai‘i faces many significant challenges. The key, however, is to pull together and find a solution, because we are all fighting for the same outcome. Only together can we overcome these challenges and significantly shape Hawai‘i’s future.
Lahea Salazar, Kaua‘i program manager
Paxen Huli Ke Alo
About Face! Family of Programs
Tax marijuana and implement minimum age
Marijuana should be legalized but taxed like cigarettes and alcohol. Also it should be put to an age limit.
Like minors can’t buy alcohol until they are 21 years old, that’s what they should do to marijuana. We should open dispensaries to only licensed patients and have government control.
Marijuana should be only for adults and patients from hospitals who undergo surgery or any other type of procedure that requires that person to feel pain.
I hope in the near future we will make wise choices, and teach our kids right from wrong, and also educate them on this issue.
Also, we should educate kids and adults about crack, cocaine and the many other drugs that aren’t “medicinal” but are used just to get high, act stupid and make awful choices in our society.
Paula Russo, Kapa‘a
