An open letter to Madam Vice President Kamala Harris
Welcome to our island where Aloha is the most important cultural value. Treating everyone as equals and sharing everything with everyone.
Your attention or staff may notice a missing detail re: island leadership. How many women are missing at the top levels of our county government? As high level decision makers.
All our county employees, are actually State of Hawai‘i employees, with extraordinary benefits.
Leadership for women is not widely cultivated, honored, or respected. Currently, our brave Senator Mazie Hirono made her way to the top. Gender equality is not mandated. Our glass ceiling is invisible, it is the air we breathe.
Centuries of imported, inherited cultural bias. It is the norm, and many women leave the island for wider opportunities elsewhere. Parents support & encourage education for their daughters.
Since 1973, serving on the leadership team for YWCA of Kaua‘i, I helped start the very first Battered Women’s Shelter, along with many I watch as the decades fly past.
Witnessing the courage and grace of women still struggling to find their way through the maze of domestic violence, brutality to elders, risky pregnancies and caregiving, I beg you to not forget the women on our island.
Wishing you a nurturing, renewing, and an Aloha filled vacation.
At your service
Virginia Beck, NP Emeritus, RN, CTP, Global Legacy, Pay it Forward, Strategic Solutions
