LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i Police Department School Resource Officers were among the first guests when the Ho‘okele Coalition of Kaua‘i presented its open house on Wednesday at the Hale ‘Opio building on Umi Street.
“We have a physical space,” said Tamara Lawrence, the Ho‘okele Coalition coordinator for adults. “Hale ‘Opio has agreed to let us have a space in their program. This open house is in their meeting room.”
When started in 2018 under a Drug-Free Communities grant from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lawrence said she was alone. She was trying to learn about the drug program, the mechanics of Ho‘okele, and trying to network with the variety of agencies dealing with the drug problem that includes alcoholism to more hardcore substance abuse.
Ho‘okele Coalition serves as a central gathering hub for all of the community entities that consists of 20 organizations and individuals, and a 12-sector representation of “grasstops” and “grassroots” groups involved in the battle against drug and substance abuse similar to the palm being the hub of the hand’s fingers.
“Many of the groups involved, like the Kaua‘i Police Department SRO program, are on the front line of the drug problem,” Lawrence said. “They experience the problem firsthand. We act to collect this data and make sure everyone is on the same page. The battle is against drug abuse.”
Coalition membership breaks down into about a dozen community segments, including youths, schools, parents, youth-serving organizations, law enforcement, civic organizations, health care providers, businesses, media, religious, government, and substance abuse organizations.
Visitors representing these segments were asked to do a drug mapping exercise to gather data for the coalition’s use in planning its next steps.
Since starting in 2018, Lawrence has been joined by Sariah Mokuahi. She serves as the project coordinator for youth.
“‘Ho‘okele’ translates to mean ‘to steer,’” Mokuahi said.
Th Ho‘okele Coalition mission is to prevent and reduce substance use by the island’s youths through community-level change strategies that are data-driven.
The Ho‘okele Coalition will next present its findings of the drug mapping exercise and discuss its next strategic steps during a general meeting scheduled for Feb. 15.
