Mokuola Honua

Pilina First’s partners and associates developed and led this Global Center for Indigenous Language Excellence including message and marketing, educational program development, and event marketing, planning, and execution. Our work with Mokuola Honua (MH) also included extensive engagement with various agencies and entities at the United Nations both in New York City and Paris around indigenous language and culture advocacy. See portfolio for MH work.

Mokuola Honua Global Center For Indigenous Language Excellence is named for the small island in Hilo Bay called Mokuola. Literally, an “island of life and healing,” Mokuola is a traditional healing site for Native Hawaiians.

Mokuola is traditionally said to be a piece of the neighboring island of Maui that was dislodged by the hook of the cultural hero Māui. This happened as part of a process by which Māui was seeking to bring the Hawaiian Islands completely together. The Center is envisioned as providing a venue to bring the Indigenous World together to seek life and healing for – and through – indigenous languages.

In striving to bring the world’s indigenous peoples together in Hilo, the Center does not seek to homogenize indigenous peoples into a single approach or philosophy. The story of Māui and Mokuola shows that a more appropriate goal is closer relationships while maintaining distinctiveness. The addition of the word Honua after Mokuola represents the world and also a safe and protected space.

The full name Mokuola Honua represents the aspirations of the host Hawaiian language college to offer its small but embracing home as a safe place of healing and life for the world’s indigenous peoples.

Over the past 35+ years, the mantra of the Hawaiian language movement has been “E Ola ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i.” “The Hawaiian language shall live.” "What is Ola?” is a travel documentary hosted by Keli‘i Wilson, one of the very first immersion graduates and daughter of two ‘Aha Pūnana Leo founders. Born in the mid-80’s, Keli‘i and her brother were a couple of the very first children, outside the Ni‘ihau community, to once again be raised speaking Hawaiian as their first language. Join us as we follow Keli‘i to Greenland, Spain and Wales - home to thriving indigenous languages - to get an idea of what this state of ola might look like for our ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i in the future.