Bishop Museum Awarded $50,000 for ‘Extending Our Reach’ Project

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs awarded the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum with a $49,999 grant for its “Extending Our Reach” project, which provides educational programs and meaningful experiences to a high percentage of Native Hawaiian students on neighboring islands.

The project provides resources for the Bishop Museum to visit classrooms on the neighbor islands and share programs such as: I Luna I Lalo, Animals of Our Islands; Holoholo, Transportation and Voyaging; Hoʻolaha, Plants and Farming; and Ahupuaʻa, Resources and Community. 

From learning about traditional voyaging practices, to the plants and animals of the Hawaiian environment, to understanding Hawaiian resource management, these programs introduce students to Hawaiʻi and its unique cultural and natural history.

In order to best maximize the number of Native Hawaiian students served, schools that have a higher percentage of Native Hawaiian students, schools that are within Hawaiian Homestead communities, and Hawaiian-focused charter schools will be prioritized in the project.

“Bishop Museum’s mission is to inspire its community and visitors through the exploration, celebration and perpetuation of the extraordinary history, culture and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific,” said Brandon Bunag, Bishop Museum acting vice president of programming and director of education. “As we mālama (care for) Hawaiʻi’s living culture, providing opportunities for our communities to engage with our collections and to learn about their current and future relevance is a high priority.”

The funding is through the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ Kūlia grant program.

“Bishop Museum has kuleana (responsibility) to steward and mālama over two million cultural objects,” Bunag said. “These mea makamae, treasures of our kūpuna (elders/ancestors), represent the unbroken genealogical connection we have to our kūpuna; they are our direct link to them.

“Bishop Museum educational programming is meant to interpret and bring to life these mea makamae in a way that is meaningful to the students we serve. For Native Hawaiians, this translates as connecting the generation of today to that of our kūpuna who lived hundreds of years ago.”

More information on the “Extending Our Reach Project” will be announced on the Bishop Museum’s Education webpage at BishopMuseum.org/Education.