EA Ecoversity received $10,000 and 10 months of technical support from MIT Solve as it launches its culturally-driven higher education and career training program for Native Hawaiian youth and young adults.
EA Ecoversity is a culturally-driven higher education and career training program for Native Hawaiian youth and young adults. It was named one of eight Indigenous Communities Fellows in the 2020 MIT Solve competition on Sept. 29. It was chosen out of 71 Native-led submissions in the nationwide competition to share $100,000 in funding and support. This was the first year that the fellowship was open to Indigenous peoples nationwide.
“We could not be more pleased to receive this award, just as we are launching our first EA e-learning course, as well as our workforce development partnership with Aloha Connects Innovation and Aloha Innovation Workforce Hawaii. How incredible!” said Dr. Ku Kahakalau, EA Ecoversity founder and visionary educational leader. “MIT collaborates with us as we grow and nurture emerging, knowledge-based industries and innovation sectors in Hawaiian communities throughout the archipelago.”
EA stands for “Education with Aloha,” an ancient yet modern way of teaching developed by Kahakalau throughout the past 30 years. “Ea” also means sovereignty in Hawaiian because EA Ecoversity is designed to empower Native Hawaiians to thrive in their homeland by engaging in well-earning green careers and creating life paths that are meaningful and fulfilling. Each learner has a flexible, personalized learning plan validated by an e-portfolio, to be shared with potential employers, where learners post certificates for courses taken, digital badges, multimedia presentations and other validation of learning.
Designed for the 87% of Native Hawaiians with no post-secondary degrees, EA Ecoversity supports all learners to reach their highest level. Building on the success of the Hawaiian-focused charter school movement, EA Ecoversity is grounded in a research-based Pedagogy of Aloha that purports that caring, familial relations, a relevant curriculum and an understanding of one’s responsibility to knowledge acquired leads to contemporary and traditional rigor and should be fun at the same time.
Ku-A-Kanaka LLC is a family-owned, Native Hawaiian social enterprise, headquartered in Hilo, providing quality products and services to revitalize Hawaiian language, culture and traditions, restore a Hawaiian way of life and reconnect kanaka worldwide with their native heritage.
Ku-A-Kanaka launched its EA e-Learning program in October, providing fun, culturally-driven hands-on, virtual Hawaiian language and culture courses to Hawaiian families made up of learners of all ages. The courses are free to EA Ecoversity learners.
For additional information, visit www.kuakanaka.com/eaecoversity/.
