Rooted people. Abundant futures.
Waiʻanae Moku, Oʻahu
HistoryCulturePrideIn Action.
A living museum, gathering place and climate resilience center, built by Native Hawaiian and Filipino families on land the community owns.
- ʻĀina
- Culture
- Knowledge
- Fellowship
- Liberation
Our story
Organizers who rebuilt Lahaina, now buying back land in Waiʻanae. Not to fight one more bad development, but to build the good one ourselves.
Ulana carries forward the efforts of the 1800s: families pooling what they had to buy together. We buy places that already exist, a church, a hall, a farm, before they become another strip mall, and turn them into community assets that stay with the community.
Native-owned
Land held in community trust, governed by the people who live with it, with at the center.
Women-led
Feminist by design. The women who held families together through plantations, displacement and disasters lead what comes next.
Community-designed
Every room is shaped in charrettes with Waiʻanae: churches, schools, survivors, practitioners and neighbors.
Our focus
Four strands of one weave.
Museum exhibits, tours, events and community programs that connect people to their histories and to each other.
Land & Self-Determination
Protecting ʻāina for generations.
History & Education
Understanding our people and place.
Community & Culture
Building bonds through practice, fellowship and exchange.
Abundant Futures
Advancing clean tech and shared prosperity.
The first campus
Same rooms. A new life.
A buyer sees a listing. Waiʻanae sees a gathering hall, a living museum, and the place to charge up and get help when the power goes out. Drag to see what the rooms become.
TodayWith Ulana · Concept
Walk the grounds
By day, by night, and when the power goes out.
What we mean by resilience
Five strands. One mat.
Lahaina taught us resilience cannot begin the morning after a disaster. It is woven on ordinary days, from five strands. A mat only holds to its shortest strand, so the weft stops where the weakest one ends.
Drag any strand down. The weave stops at the shortest one.
The Ulana mark
Hala, part by part.
Hala in Hawaiʻi and pandan in the Philippines are kindred plants, woven on both sides of the Pacific. The mark draws hala young, with its thorns and storm-resistant roots. Choose a part to read it.
The build
From fellowship to opening day.
Slide through the phases. See where we are, what each step costs, and what a gift does right now.
Built to last
Grants build it.
Waiʻanae keeps it open.
The campus is designed to earn part of its own way, so programs keep running between grant cycles. Every ticket, tour and market night goes back into the work.
Night markets under the solar canopy
When the sun goes down, the parking lot fills with stalls: local makers, growers, food and music. Stall fees and foot traffic help fund the campus, and the lights run on the same panels that keep the hub powered in a storm.
Museum tickets
Visitors buy tickets to walk the interwoven story of Hawaiian and Filipino Waiʻanae.
Guided and mobile tours
Museum and grounds tours, plus mobile tours of the coast, for visitors, schools and groups.
Hall rentals and partner leases
Families and local groups rent the hall; partner nonprofits lease space on campus.
Guest house and retreats
Visiting families, practitioners and retreat groups stay on the grounds.
Programs
Already in motion.
The building comes later. The weaving has started. These charrettes are shaping every room of the campus.
Nov6
Kūpuna Listening Session
About forty elders at Lualualei Homestead, plus a “Reviving Waiʻanae Memories” oral history workshop. 11:30 a.m.
UpcomingOct21
Master Practitioner Exchange
Cultural practitioners teaching at Nānākuli Elementary, with Tawi Tawi dance history at Kula Kaiapuni.
HeldOct5
Women Survivors Input Circle
Women who have lived through disasters shaping what the resilience center must hold.
HeldSep29
Youth-Led Development
Students across Waiʻanae Coast schools surveying their families and designing with us.
OngoingSep1
Waiʻanae Neighborhood Board
Seventy community surveys completed in a single evening.
HeldPeople
A hui of organizers.
Filipino and Native Hawaiian leaders brought together by the 2023 Lahaina fire, and part of one of the most effective community-centered disaster recoveries in Hawaiʻi.
Khara Jabola-Carolus, JD
Co-founder · Project lead
Co-founder of Roots Reborn, the first legal hub for immigrant survivors of climate disasters in Hawaiʻi.
Kaniela Ing
Co-founder
Co-founder of Our Hawaiʻi and former state legislator.
Paʻele Kiakona
Co-founder
Community organizer with Lahaina Strong.
Dr. Nadezna Ortega
Co-founder
Executive director of Tagnawa.
Dr. Mahina Tuteur
Land use attorney and land back governance, Pilina Planning
Victor Palacio
City planner and technical advisor; community land trusts and charrettes
Kolaiah “Fuzzy” Jardine
Developer and investor, Waiʻanae
Glen Aoki
Financial advisor; former director of accounting, Bank of Hawaiʻi
The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School, through the EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship.
Get involved
Weave yourself in.
Give
Phase I is $1M for charrettes, studies, site control and the first exhibits. Every gift moves the land closer to community hands.
Give to Phase IVolunteer
Help at charrettes, record kūpuna stories, plant the garden, or bring a skill the campus needs.
VolunteerPartner
Funders, lenders, schools and practitioners: build the model with us, then share it with communities across the Pacific.
Start a conversation