About Us
Kūlaniākea’s Hawaiian immersion preschool & kindergarten in Kāneʻohe centers Hawaiian language, culture, and values in an effort to enrich and uplift the Hawaiian identity.
Kūlaniākea provides students with regular access to outdoor classrooms at Papahana Kuaola, and on board Kaʻihekauila, a 30ft double-hulled sailing canoe named after our founder’s father. This 501(c)3 nonprofit organization also creates curriculum and educational materials to help facilitate the learning of ʻike kupuna.
We operate a preschool & kindergarten in Kāneʻohe on the island of Oʻahu with the intent to one day grow into serving elementary and middle school age students. We also create curriculum and educational materials that promote foundational learning of Hawaiian language and cultural practices such as voyaging and navigation. These educational materials reach those who have the ʻiʻini (desire) to learn but are not able to be a part of our programs, whether in Hawaiʻi or elsewhere in the world. Some of these materials are also meant to serve as templates for other indigenous cultures to promote learning of their own ancestral wisdom.
Kūlaniākea is a non-profit educational organization serving Native Hawaiian communities through multi-generational dual language opportunities and culturally appropriate education materials.
Proceeds from purchases benefit the advancement of indigenous education.
Our Philosophy
At Kūlaniākea, we practice an educational philosophy that begins with a genuine love of children. This core value is one of many embodied in our kuanaʻike Hawaiʻi, our Hawaiian perspective.
Building upon this kāhua of Hawaiian values we hope to strengthen and enrich the Hawaiian identity in the youngest members of our lāhui, our kūpuna in training.
We nurture the spiritual, cultural, intellectual, social, emotional and character development of our keiki through 100% use of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi in the classroom. For parents and other interested community members, we offer similar resources to increase the use of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, foster their connection to our ʻāina (land), and strengthen their own Hawaiian identity.
At Kūlaniākea, our keiki and extended ʻohana are engaged, valued, and loved.
From mauka to makai, our keiki are trained to learn the language of nature by observing and connecting with the natural world. Through this work of connecting keiki to nature and their ancestors, we aim to heal generational trauma and other negative effects of colonization, specifically the dispossession of our Hawaiian homeland.
We share a common vision of Hawaiʻi where land, ocean, and people are cared for through values, intentions, and actions that take into consideration a world that exists seven generations into the future.
We are all connected in time and space through Aloha.
KAPU ALOHA
In response to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna o Wākea, one of the most sacred Native Hawaiian sites, Kūlaniākea has issued the following statement.