Mālama Honua Fair and Summit a Great Success!

The Mālama Honua Homecoming Fair and Summit was a great success.  For three days, local and global community members gathered together to discuss stories of hope inspired by or collected during the Worldwide Voyage, with the intention of developing a new sail plan for the islands of Hawai`i and our island Earth.  The Fair and Summit was open to the general public, and included canoe tours, information booths, film screenings, walk-through exhibits and hands-on activities, as well as opportunities to connect with individuals, groups and organizations taking actions both locally and globally to mālama honua.

The Homecoming Summit also included larger keynote events, like the World Youth Congress Summit.  Polynesian Voyaging Society, in collaboration with the World Youth Congress invited young people from across the World to celebrate mālama honua stories and to create a collective call to action to the next generation in coming up with a new sail plan for the future stewardship of the planet.

Another keynote event of the Summit was the International Speaker Series, which featured courageous and inspiring individuals who are navigating towards a more just and sustainable future for island Earth.  Featured speakers included: Nainoa Thompson, Megan Smith, Dieter Paulmann, Sylvia Earle, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Captain Don Walsh, Reverend Mpho Tutu van Furth, and Alaska Lt. Governor Byron Mallott.

Her Deepness Sylvia Earle, Ocean Elder Photo Credit: `Ōiwi TV

Reverend Mpho Tutu, ordained Episcopal Priest and the founding Director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation Photo Credit: `Ōiwi TV

On the final day of the Mālama Honua Summit, individuals from across the state, as well as the continental U.S. and Australia, came together to have an amazing conversation about the work they or their organizations were already doing to mālama honua, and what work they would like to be doing in the future.  The more than 100 attendees represented a mixed bag of public and private sectors, for profit and nonprofit organizations, and educational and governmental institutions.  And although they came from vastly different places, they came together with the common goal to connect with like-minded groups and individuals to find ways to support and accelerate current mālama honua initiatives, as well as to develop and initiate new ones.

Photo Credit: `Ōiwi TV

Photo Credit: `Ōiwi TV

Organizations like NOAA, DLNR, DOFAW, Surfrider, 808 CleanUps, the and the Hawai`i Nature Center were able to link up with local high school teachers and University of Hawai`i STEMS2 Program professors about their needs for volunteers and interns and talk about how they can better connect students to such opportunities.  Individuals from community organizations were able to sit with their governmental counterparts and have difficult conversations about moving forward together and how best to do that.  Leaders from independent and DOE schools, as well as other educational organizations such as Mindful Schools Hawaii and `Imiloa Astronomy Center, got together to brainstorm how they can collaborate to better support students and teachers, and how to change the conversation about the purpose of education.