Native Hawaiians at Unpfii 2023

Through the generations, have developed valuable knowledge about the natural world, health, technologies and skills, rites and rituals, and other cultural expressions. Their knowledge is necessary for a sustainable future!

Join us tomorrow at 9:00am EST (3:00am HI time) for our virtual event discussing our genealogy recovery project! For those of you cannot make it, we will be posting a recording of the presentation later. Feel free to leave any questions you have for our team/about our project in the comments below, and we will send out a Zoom link in the morning!

UPDATE: Due to a lack of space, we have decided to cancel our presentation and move it online! We will virtually present our side event presentation on our 9,000+ page genealogy recovery project on Friday April 21 at 9:00a EST, and we will post a recording of the event to our Facebook if you cannot make it. Flyer and Zoom link to follow!

Please join us on Thursday April 20, 2023 at 2:30pm EST for our UNPFII 2023 side event where we will discuss our genealogy recovery project of over 9,000+ pages of handwritten genealogical documents found in the Hawaiʻi State Archives.

The event is open to the public if you are in the NYC area, not just for attendees of the Permanent Forum. You can also watch the virtual stream here on our Facebook if you cannot make it in person!

Welina mai!

Our second day at the UN was packed full of exciting events. In the first session, one of our delegates, Lahela Mattos, delivered an intervention on behalf of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus in regard to the UNPFII’s Agenda Item 3—Special theme of session: “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach.” Members of the caucus (and from our own delegation, of course!) stood behind Lāhela as she gave her testimony in pan-Indigenous youth solidarity. The visual impact of this solidarity was very powerful, and Lāhela’s testimony was very well received by the general assembly. You can find a transcript of Lāhela’s intervention below!

In the afternoon, another one of our delegates, Alyssa Purcell was part of a panel put on by the Global Wisdom Collective, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and protecting intergenerational knowledge systems. The panel was titled “Revitalize the Roots,” and each speaker discussed how they practice and safeguard their ancestral knowledge systems. Alyssa’s presentation focused on how Hawaiian chants function as ancestral knowledge and communication. The work that the Global Wisdom Collective is doing is much needed and so very important to Indigenous peoples across the globe. You can find out more at their website: https://www.globalwisdomcollective.org/, or watch this short introductory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYl4pKX1IwU&ab_channel=JamiiAsiliaCentre.

Another one of our delegates, Makanalani Gomes, also participated in a UNPFII side event today, titled “Indigenous Determinants of Health in the 2030 Agenda,” which was put on, in part, by the National Indian Health Board. The event highlighted a landmark report on Indigenous health, which you can read more about here: https://www.nihb.org/UNPFII2023/.

We will upload videos of Lāhela's testimony, as well as Alyssa's presentation once we have better Internet connection. Tomorrow should be a little less intense, but no less worthwhile! We will be back with updates soon!

Aloha mai!

Our first official day at the UN was a busy one! In the morning, our student delegates attended the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus (GIYC) morning meeting to continue working on the GIYC’s interventions that we began drafting during the caucus’ preparatory meeting on Sunday.

During the first session, after the forum member elections, several speakers addressed the general assembly, including the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the President of Colombia, and the United States’ Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland. This session was held in the UN’s General Assembly Hall, and our delegation met up with two other delegations from Hawaiʻi, a group of kumu from ʻAha Pūnana Leo and a delegation of students from BYU Hawaiʻi.

The afternoon session focused on the theme of the health, safety, and rights of Indigenous women and girls. Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, gave the opening presentation, and Minister Guajajara is the first person to hold this position in Brazil’s history. The keynote address was given by a representative from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), reporting on CEDAW’s Recommendation #39 on the rights of Indigenous women and girls, which was adopted by CEDAW in October of 2022. The interactive dialogues of this session focused on CEDAW Recommendation #39 and the Decade of Indigenous Languages, which began in 2022.

Day two is shaping up to be even busier than day one, so check back in soon to see what we get up to!

Please join us on Thursday April 20, 2023 at 2:30pm EST for our UNPFII 2023 side event where we will discuss our genealogy recovery project of over 9,000+ pages of handwritten genealogical documents found in the Hawaiʻi State Archives.

The event is open to the public if you are in the NYC area, not just for attendees of the Permanent Forum. You can also watch the virtual stream here on our Facebook if you cannot make it in person!

Aloha Pōʻakahi! In honor of our first official day at the 22nd session of the UNPFII, we would like to introduce you to the members of our delegation as well as take the time to thank our very generous funders who made this whole trip possible! Check back in soon for a recap of day one!

Aloha mai! The delegations from Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi and Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies have arrived in New York City for the 22nd session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). On our first full day in the city, the delegation attended the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus' (GIYC) preparatory meeting, held at the beautiful Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, who provided us with coffee and donuts to sustain us. One of our members, Makanalani Gomes, is a co-chair of the GIYC, and hosted the meeting for the 30+ young Indigenous delegates who have come to New York for UNPFII 2023. We discussed the purpose of the GIYC as an advisory group to the UN, the amazing work the GIYC has done in the last year, and we broke up into smaller groups to draft interventions on behalf of the caucus to present to the general assembly at the forum in the upcoming days. We shared our traditions, our struggles, and space with young people from Indigenous nations across the UN’s seven regions.

Each day, we’d like to post a personal reflection from one of our student delegates about the day’s events, and first up is our sole first-time delegate, Hali'a:

“I wasn’t sure what to expect going into today’s meeting, and while it was overwhelming, it was ultimately so rewarding to be a part of. Sometimes it can feel like we, as Kānaka, have tunnel vision. There are so many Hawaiʻi-specific issues on the local, state, national, and international level that it’s hard to think about the world outside our archipelago. But being amongst other Indigenous youth from across the globe, I see just how similar our struggles are. The specifics are different, but we all have experienced similar effects of colonization. This was a great time to come together and build relationships with the next generation of indigenous leaders, and I can’t wait to see what else the week has in store.”

The forum officially opens tomorrow, April 17, 2023, and we are so excited for the week ahead! Check back here for regular updates, and feel free to share our page with your friends and family.

Me ke aloha pumehana.

We'll be presenting some of our work details are as follows:
Zoom: https://bit.ly/brandtweb
Facebook Live
Time: 11:30am-12:15pm EDT, 5:30am-6:15am HST
Date: Friday, May 6, 2022
Ke aloha nui and we look forward to seeing you at the webinar!