65 charter school students explore careers at Kauai Community College event

About 65 Hawaiian charter school students spent an hour testing career paths at Kauaʻi Community College in Puhi, in a program meant to do more than spark interest. The annual Nā Pua Noʻeau Kauaʻi “Mad Skillz” event was built to give teens a practical skill, a closer look at campus programs and a clearer sense of whether a local career on Kauaʻi could be their next step.

This year’s four pathways were culinary arts, agriculture, beekeeping and electrical installation and maintenance technology, or EIMT. Mālia Chun, the Nā Pua Noʻeau Kauaʻi coordinator, has said the hands-on format is what separates the event from a traditional career fair, with the goal that students leave with something they can actually do, not just a stack of pamphlets. That approach fits a larger workforce question on Kauaʻi, where schools and employers are trying to build more training pathways that keep young people close to home.

The beekeeping session gave students a particularly island-specific lesson. They made sugar scrubs using honey and jabong flower oil, then tasted hot honey made with chili peppers. Every ingredient came from the Kauaʻi CC campus, turning the exercise into a small example of how campus resources can feed both education and local enterprise.

Student mentors from the Waiʻaleʻale Project joined the charter school students and talked story about the pathways they are pursuing themselves. After the workshops, participants learned more about the Waiʻaleʻale Project and the Kīpaipai Program for first-year students, and they received tools and materials tied to their chosen field. Kauaʻi CC says the sessions are part of a broader effort to connect cultural enrichment with educational and career goals that serve family and community.

Nā Pua Noʻeau is the University of Hawaiʻi system’s primary PreK-12 enrichment program for Native Hawaiian children, first established at UH Hilo in 1989. Kauaʻi CC says the program has been providing cultural enrichment opportunities for keiki for 30 years.

For some students, the event reinforced plans already taking shape. Ninth-grader Kaley Rapacon said she enjoyed learning about the campus apiary, but plans to pursue automotive studies and eventually join her family’s business. Fellow ninth-grader Kulia Numazawa-Laranio, who is enrolled in Hawaiian Studies early college courses through Kauaʻi CC, said she is considering EIMT, but chose beekeeping because it was one trade she had not yet tried.

The EIMT track is designed to prepare students for the State of Hawaiʻi Maintenance Electrician License test, a direct reminder that the college is trying to turn early exposure into credentials, and credentials into work. With culinary instructor Chef Steve Nakata and EIMT instructor Veronica Rose helping lead the day, Kauaʻi CC used the event to make one case plain: if more students can see a future on campus, more of them may one day stay on Kauaʻi to build it.