May is National Trauma Awareness Month — a time to pause, reflect, and heal. Trauma affects many, but through knowledge, compassion, and aloha, we can create a path to healing.
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Hale Kipa presents a conference offering insights into generational trauma and fostering stronger connections to create a better future for our youth and families. The event includes a continental breakfast and lunch and features a powerful play: Family Laundry. The play addresses family dynamics in the context of adversity, alcoholism, abuse, and PTSD. The conference will be presented in a panel style with three engaging discussions that explore the intersection of trauma, resilience, and community.
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Play: Family Laundry is a musical, a comedy, and a drama about a local Hawaiian family and their struggle to deal with a family member’s alcoholism. The title of the play, “Family Laundry,” stems from the viewpoint of “never airing the family’s dirty laundry” or letting the family problems become public. The play gives a powerful message of how a family’s beliefs concerning drinking can strongly influence a child’s own beliefs about alcohol use, abuse, and addiction which can lead to many other traumatic events.
Panel 1: Family Laundry Deconstructed
This engaging panel discussion will unpack the themes of family dynamics in the face of adversity and their cultural significance, as experienced through the Family Laundry play. We will explore how we navigate generational tensions and the broader cultural impact on the ʻohana (family) and kaiaulu (communities).
Panel 2: Kūlana, Kuleana, and Mālama Ko Aloha: Chiefess Manonoʻs Enduring Legacy
This panel will explore the enduring legacy of Chiefess Manono through the lens of her powerful final words, “Malama Ko aloha” (preserve your love). Panelists will discuss the way we carry out our role as help givers and our responsibilities and guide us through the challenges of our work including how we deal with secondary traumatic stress. The conversation will focus on the importance of resilience building and the ways we sustain our aloha and purpose in the face of adversity while ensuring we remain strong enough to support and uplift others and ourselves while drawing on the wisdom of Manono’s legacy.
Panel 3: Pehea Kou Pilina? (How are your relationships?): Building Deep and Lasting Relationships
In keeping with the theme of the legacy of Chiefess Manono, Mālama Ko aloha, we explore Pilina (connection) as a responsibility we have to create and nurture meaningful, compassionate relationships with those we serve and serve alongside. Manono’s wisdom calls on us to protect and preserve our love, trust, and respect for ourselves and others, and in so doing, we strengthen the resilience in all of us.
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Don’t miss this insightful and powerful event!
Friday, May 23, 2025 • 8 am to 4 pm
KROC Center Hawaii • Performing Arts Center
91-3257 Kualakai Parkway, ʻEwa Beach, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi
General admission is $25 per person. Click here to purchase your tickets.
For more information, please contact Hayley at hoya@halekipa.org or by calling (808) 589-1829, ext. 401.