A statewide intergenerational initiative
Every day, Hawaiʻi loses knowledge that was never written down.
Across our islands are thousands of kūpuna, educators, farmers, healers, entrepreneurs, and cultural practitioners whose ʻike has never been documented. The Hawaiʻi Living Wisdom Project trains students to sit down with them, record their stories, and preserve them for the generations still to come.
Two needs, one answer
Our elders carry decades of lived experience, judgment, and cultural perspective. Our young people are searching for purpose, mentors, and a real connection to the place they come from. This project puts them in the same room.
Stories, not facts
What a person truly believes is embedded in the stories they tell, not in the answers they give. Students are trained to capture the story.
Family first
Every student begins with their own grandparent or family elder before interviewing anyone else in the community.
Owned by Hawaiʻi
Recordings, transcripts, and photographs live in a digital archive that belongs to the people of Hawaiʻi, under community governance and clear consent.
How a story gets recorded
- 01
Nominate
Anyone in Hawaiʻi can recommend someone whose knowledge should be preserved.
- 02
Train
Students complete short online modules on interviewing, protocol, and consent.
- 03
Sit down
The student schedules the visit, records the conversation, and listens.
- 04
Preserve
With permission, the story enters the archive at the level the storyteller chose.
From the archive
See all storiesKauaʻi
We were told the language was gone
Lehua Kaʻaihue on entering an immersion classroom as a child and later teaching in the same room.
Lehua Kaʻaihue
Oʻahu
A shop is a promise to your neighbors
Herbert Sakai recalls opening a machine shop in Kalihi in 1961, and the unwritten rules of doing business in the neighborhood.
Herbert Sakai
Molokaʻi
House calls on a road that floods
Amelia Kahananui on rural nursing, trust, and why she never once asked a family for paperwork at the door.
Amelia Kahananui
Every sector of Hawaiʻi life
Voices from every island, every culture, and every profession belong in this archive.
- Culture
- Education
- Business
- Healthcare
- Technology
- Agriculture
- Government
- Environmental stewardship
- Military service
- Nonprofit leadership
- Entrepreneurship
- The arts
Not about replacing human wisdom with artificial intelligence.
With permission, privacy protections, and cultural governance, this archive can become the foundation for an open, Hawaiʻi-centered knowledge model built on authentic local values — so that future technology learns from Hawaiʻi's people instead of overlooking them.