Court recognizes mediator’s volunteer work

LIHU‘E — Court mediator volunteers provide a good service for the 5th District Court, Judge Trudy Senda said last week.

Currently, there are about 20 volunteers helping at the court, said Jessie Basquez, coordinator of the Kaua‘i Economic Opportunity Mediation Program.

Altogether, the program has 40 people volunteering as mediators with 20 serving as court mediators, she said.

Coinciding with April 19-25 being National Volunteer Week, the staff of the 5th District Court took time out for a special luncheon honoring the work being done by the KEO court mediator volunteers.

Basquez said the court mediators provide service to the court primarily in civil cases that include small claims, landlord-tenant disputes, temporary restraining orders and collections.

But their services sometimes overflow to adult restitution cases involving assault, terroristic threatening and harassment, she said.

“The mediators are all volunteers,” Basquez said. “This is an all-volunteer force.”

She said they receive some funds from the judiciary department. Other funding comes from the Kaua‘i United Way, which describes the mediation program as a confidential problem-solving process where a trained mediator helps the disputing parties in communicating what is important in the dispute, creating and negotiating options and agreements that are fair and realistic.

Basquez said some of the areas KEO mediators work in the community involve neighborhood disputes, job disputes, Hawai‘i civil rights, the Department of Education, and condominiums or real estate issues.

People interested in becoming volunteer mediators can contact Basquez at 245-4077 ext. 237.

“We just couldn’t do things without the mediators’ help,” Senda said. “We would like to honor them and show them how appreciative we are of what they do in court.”