When Nani Rothfus, Nutritionist at Hilo’s Native Hawaiian Health Care Organization Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi, set up her booth at the recent E Malama ‘Aina sustainability festival, she brought dirt, seeds and egg cartons so kids could participate in a hands-on activity.
Why plant seeds?
Along with Edna Baldado, Rothfus coordinates Mai Ka Mala‘ai, (“From The Garden”), a diabetes education program funded through the Native Hawaiian Health Department of the John A. Burns School of Medicine.
It’s a 10-week educational program that teaches participants how to manage their diabetes.
“The really neat thing about the program is that we deliver a 4 x 4 box to each of our clients,” she says. “Richard has been so generous in providing the seedlings. We fill the boxes with soil and have a couple volunteer gardeners who teach them how to plant the seeds.”
They take home the cartons and tend their seeds over the course of the workshop, and hopefully beyond. “The idea is for them to get some physical activity,” she says, “and also to eat from the garden and to share from the garden. It’s also something for them to be able to bond with each other over. When they first come into the program, they may not say a word to each other. Once they have their garden and I ask, ‘How is your garden growing?’ everybody talks!’”
She says that Mai Ka Mala‘ai also teaches what’s taught in other diabetes education classes. “What diabetes is, medications, how to monitor your blood sugar, healthy recipes, how much to eat,” she lists. “But there’s a component of teaching traditional values, too,” she says.
She describes the five cultural values they incorporate into the program:
- Malama – Taking care of someone; (“And it’s part of our name.”)
- Aloha – Making sure when people come and when they leave we speak to them, acknowledge them
- Kuleana – Making sure they understand that even though they come to us and we give them skills, they have to take care of themselves
- Ho‘ihi – Respecting one another; when somebody shares something it’s important for all of us to listen and learn from it
- Ho‘omanawanui – Being patient with one another; all are at different levels of their conditions.
The class of 16 students meets every Thursday night at Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi’s Railroad Avenue office for 10 weeks. There are three such classes a year.
Rothfus says they encourage the person with diabetes to bring along family members to learn and support the person with diabetes.
And she says the workshops are very popular. When they started offered them in 2006, she says it was a lot of work finding people to enroll. “Now most of them don’t want to leave the class when it ends. They’ve got tremendous support from the class. They tell other people they know and we have people lining up.”
The current class just got their box and seedlings last week. Now, with the storm that’s flooded East Hawai‘i, she says, “their gardens are just floating.”
But presumably they will be patient, ho‘omanawanui, and will malama, take care of, their seedlings, because it’s their kuleana, their responsibility. And Mai Ka Mala‘ai will help them along the way.