It's really something that helped me discover who I was.

I think middle school me would look at me now and just be like, “How do I get there?” I think I realized how much I enjoyed collaborating with other people.

I left with such a greater purpose and self-identity, HIKI NŌ was such a big, um, eye opener for me.

[slow orchestral music] I'm Kate Nakamura and I graduated from the class of 2023 at Kaua‘i High School.

I’m Ty Kajihara, class of ‘23, from Kaua‘i High School.

So, in fifth grade, going into middle school, we had the option to take these three advanced classes, and I signed up for the media class, which a couple of my classmates, uh, Kate actually was one of them, had signed up for.

And going into it, I kind of just imagined it as making the videos I saw online, but once I got into the class, I think even though it wasn't what I expected, I was very satisfied and interested in what media entailed.

It was the same for me; started off, um, in middle school at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School with Mr. Matsunaga, or Mr. M. I kind of got interested in it because I knew people that were in the program, and on Kaua‘i that program is really well known.

They're out in the community.

They're going to national conventions, like STN, winning awards doing this great work, and I thought it was really cool and something that I wanted to try.

So, I kind of dove in headfirst not knowing anything, but I kind of learned the ropes and just learned to love it.

So, my first challenge video was in 2017, it was a Fall Challenge, and I think the topic was something along the lines of ‘walking in another person's shoes.’ We eventually landed on suicide and the family members that are left after a loved one commit suicide, and it's a really heavy topic, especially as these young people trying to like, figure out ourselves.

So doing that first story was my, my first serious story, interviewing these people listening to their stories, feeling their heartbreak and kind of telling their story.

It was a pivotal moment in my journey to becoming like, a journalist.

When they reach that point, they won't know what to do.

And to them, that might be their solution, because that's the only way they think that their pain will end.

Similar to Kate, I also created a franchise piece.

We did a video covering Kalalau Trail, and all the trash and rubbish left behind and how the DLNR has to work around it.

I was very fortunate that I got picked up because I got to work with the HIKI NŌ as a sixth grader, and we got to get comments and feedback, actually to the last day of sixth grade.

Yeah, that was my introduction.

Something else that really stands out about Kate and Ty is, um, from as young as their freshman year, you know, they, they work together really, really well.

I guess the first thing was persuading me to allow them to be the first freshmen that I would take to STN in a Student Television Network convention.

So, they were the first freshmen that I took out of state to STN.

We were grateful that we got the opportunity to go as freshmen, and we kind of flew up; we were excited.

We did practices.

We practiced with, um, Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School as well because they were flying up.

And we heard about this thing called COVID-19.

At that time, we didn't know what it was; we just knew it was like, a sickness, like bring extra Clorox wipes, bring hand sanitizer, wipe stuff down.

Then on March 11, the day before the convention was to commence, COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic.

We, we literally just had arrived at the convention hotel, and then one of the other Hawai‘i teachers comes up and said, um, “Did you hear?” The students, like everybody, were more than just disappointed.

It was pretty devastating, to say the least, to work hard and kind of want to do this and meet new people and have these new experiences, and just to have it all go away.

I think my mind was just really fixated on being able to, you know, just spend our, our day left with all the people we flew up with, and kind of how do we progress from here?

What do we do in the moment?

And how do we make the best of what we have left?

When I was back on Kaua‘i.

I didn't really think much of it, like I knew it was an issue, and I was kind of afraid that it was kind of serious, but I never realized how big it is and important it is up in the mainland.

HIKI NŌ did a documentary on the convention,   and I was grateful and really glad that they asked me to do narration for it.

Even with so many things weighing on their mind, the students did not lose sight of the reason they had traveled all the way to D.C. in the first place.

It kind of was a great learning experience for me, and it was surreal to hear my voice on TV.

Our school was virtual the year after.

And for me personally, I think Kate would agree, you kind of learned how to work independently, and a lot of our work was solo projects.

We both did work for Student Reporting Labs PBS.

For me, it kind of got like, pretty lonely.

I realized how much I enjoyed collaborating with other people.

Life at home was like a never-ending weekend.

Not being able to see anyone besides my family makes me feel mentally and physically trapped.

However, it gave me the opportunity to work on skills I never had the time for earlier.

I think virtual stuff I didn't, I didn't feel the same connection.

Yeah, it just wasn't the same.

It was also different, but one thing that kind of stuck throughout was the class.

Even though it was just a few of us, um, Mrs. Aiwohi would email us be like, “Hey, there's the HIKI NŌ challenge coming up.

Do you guys want to participate?

Is this something you guys are interested in?” And we could always get like, a group or two to say, “Yeah, I would love to do it.” Something that me and Ty both worked on for the 2021 Spring Challenge for HIKI NŌ, we did a story on our hometown hero, Dennis Fujimoto.

He's a reporter for our local newspaper, and he's been around for a long time; he's a familiar face in our community.

And we actually won first for that news story, which was really great.

And we basically only got together to film.

So, it was amazing to see how we were able to create this really amazing news story, just through virtual communication.

Heroes can be seen everywhere and anywhere.

Although they may not wear capes, you can always catch this hero rocking his beige vest.

The win was just like, an extra thing.

It was like the first time I really went out to cover a personal profile, since a lot of my work was virtual.

And a lot of my videos were kind of just like, a lot more personal instead of going out there in the community.

I think that a lot of people view news and journalism as really dated stuff that like only old people watch and only old people care about, but it's the telling and spreading awareness of different issues and bringing different voices to light – that's still going to be a consistent need.

So, it's seeing that we as young people do this, and we enjoy doing this, we have a passion for it, and we want to share it with the world; I think that's what's most important to me when these stories get broadcast.

I think being able to show our work as students is really important because it gives us a spot to broader audiences to show the messages that we care about, the stories we care about.

Because a lot of the stories we're sharing are the ones in our community, and the people we see every day, and, um, the issues that we care about, because we're the ones picking the stories, which is very important to have, because it gives us a little bit of representation and kind of helps us foster mentality that our voices matter, and that the voices we're emphasizing, the people that we're covering, that they matter too.

You might not have to say anything else; just by you saying hi might make a difference.

This fall, I will be attending Arizona State University and I'll be attending the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism as a journalism major, and I definitely have HIKI NŌ to thank for introducing this type of storytelling and honing my passion for it.

In the fall, I'll be going to Japan to attend a language school, where I then plan on transferring to university on a pre-med track.

Working with HIKI NŌ made me a stronger writer, and I think that's been a really big help.

I got to find my style of writing.

For technical skills, I do plan on getting into sports photography there.

I think that it helped me to not only grow and create a good work ethic I can have these standards for my work, but it also immersed me more in my community.

That work ethic and skills that I learned through   HIKI NŌ are something I'm going to continue to use beyond school.

My name is Jazmyne Viloria and I graduated from Maui High School.

I was always into photography or just taking pictures wherever, so I thought the inevitable pathway was to go into media to learn more about cameras.

In middle school, I signed up for their Maui Waena after school STEMworks program.

And I think the first sentence I spoke to Ms. Suzuki was, “Do you know who I am?” She responded so nicely, with just like a bubbly attitude of, “I don't know who you are, please introduce me.” So, I think that first initial impression really held throughout all my three years with Ms. Suzuki.

She always encouraged her students to go above and beyond and not just limiting them to, ‘oh, you’re a middle schooler.

This is what you're supposed to do.’ She really pushed our boundaries and really showed us that there’s so many opportunities in the community that we can do to help out and also tell the story of others.

Going through the program, it really showed me that these opportunities are so important to middle schoolers at such a young age as it forms their mindset going into high school and the real world.

So, I actually go back and help out with Ms. Suzuki’s media program.

I just finished mentoring their media camp as well as their robotics camp with a focus in documenting and creating media.

These opportunities of PBS Hawai‘i HIKI NŌ and SRL really just astonished me on how there's so many programs that bring a new generation of storytellers at such a young age.

That really cultivated my passion with creative media, and especially storytelling.

So, I continued that all throughout middle school and high school, oftentimes getting involved in HIKI NŌ seasonal challenges, going out in the community and telling others’ stories.

And these steps are creating a path that many around the world are following.

We did quite a handful of stories when I was in middle school.

We did on the plastic pollution, a story on Mr. Robert Fusato, and him and his wife's journey of adopting.

We've also done another one relating to family about a boxing coach who formed his own ‘ohana through boxing.

It's given me a family.

It's given me dreams and aspirations.

It's taught me hard work, and without it I 100% would not be the person I am today.

We also highlighted a local food truck who was donating free meals to government workers during the government shutdown.

Not only do these actions benefit the community, they build community.

So, every weekend we will go out to the community and find stories, or find people to do stories on, and I think that was one of those ‘find a story within an hour and create a feature story about.’ It gives me a sense of belonging to our community.

Actually, in eighth grade, some of the high school clubs came to our school to kind of pitch them to us.

And the first club that I went to was Mr. Gima’s video club.

It was kind of funny seeing Ms. Suzuki and Mr. Gima stand next to each other because they radiate such different energies.

Mr. Gima isn't a nice person essentially, but he's ultimately kind.

I guess it's like, tough love.

Like, he'll tell you up straight and like, what's bad about a video.

So, it's really giving a clear lens and not a bias.

I think I'm carrying my creative media passions onto high school, I think Ms. Suzuki showed me all the pathways of creative media, whereas with Mr. Gima, he helped me realize which pathway is the right one for me.

Creative media, my storytelling skills can be brought to a new platform towards the business side, specifically marketing.

And by bringing those things into modern culture, younger people, or people that are not necessarily connected to their culture, will attach to that.

So, given the prompt from ‘Where Tradition Meets Today,’ for my HIKI NŌ fall challenge entry, I wanted to do a story on Mise Kimono because of their roots within the Japanese traditional culture, and how they're kind of stitching that into modern casual clothing.

So, we want to introduce that traditional aspect to younger people or to more modern people.

But after interviewing with their owner, I found such a deeper story of how, um, they're not only perpetuating their culture, but also the spirit of their grandmother.

She was very strong.

She was very loud.

She was very boisterous.

She was fun, crazy.

And so, you know, we embody that spirit in this store.

Without the initiative of HIKI NŌ, I wouldn't have learned that and formed that connection.

They place you into the position of what do you want to do?

How will you tackle this problem?

How will you show the story?

They give these pathways full of creativity, full of purpose, that really instills so much within a middle schooler that helps them throughout their self-identity journey, finding their own passions, whether it be in the media field or not.

It really stays at the forefront of their mind throughout their whole high school journey and influencing their future.

I was still having that - I think that debate almost every hallway student has is out of state versus in state.

Everywhere I went, I was asked, “Why would you ever leave paradise?” I chose Mānoa because I wanted to directly help my community.

I think when everyone hears Hawai‘i, they think kind of the tourist aspect of palm trees, beaches, hotels, resorts, blah, blah, blah.

I want to help shine a light upon those local stories, those cultural-driven businesses.

So, with that in mind, I committed to UH Mānoa to major in marketing, and possibly also double major as marketing and cinematic arts.

We'll see, we'll see how, where college takes me.

But overall, my goal is to use my skills through HIKI NŌ, through all these extracurricular activities and UH Mānoa to become that resource for local business owners and help them show their story.

I thought, going to HIKI NŌ, that I'm just going to be student.

I was just going to sit down, learn, watch, maybe do a couple assignment videos on the side.

But instead, I left with such a greater purpose and self-identity that I never would have thought going into it.

[soft rock music] My name is Ash, I just graduated from Konawaena High School on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, and my pronouns are he/they.

I've always been into like, theater, and like, theatrics and drama and all that sorts.

I joined the school Konawaena Broadcast my freshman year, and I just kept doing that.

And here I am.

The story that I did for HIKI NÕ was about my journey about my gender discovery, and what it's like being trans in high school.

I first came out as queer in seventh grade, but I hadn't realized I was trans until my freshman year.

Coming out isn't an easy process.

It's full of ups and downs, lots of questioning yourself, and debating whether or not it's safe to come out, depending on those around you.

With all the anti-trans legislation that's coming out around this time, I thought that it would be a really good idea to express that it's not like, a scary thing.

We're people, we just want to exist.

I've known Ash for four years, and Ash has been in my, uh, broadcast team, uh, since Ash was a freshman.

So, I've been privileged to see Ash grow and evolve.

So, when I read Ash's story I thought wow, this is, this is really good.

And it was one of the easiest stories.

Even though it was a challenging topic, it was one of the easiest stories to tell, because Ash knew exactly what Ash just wanted to say.

Another obstacle I have is a lack of queer teaching at school.

Currently, the school curriculum has one advisory lesson that covers the LGBTQ+ community, but it's such an important topic that one lesson doesn't cover much of the specifics.

It is nerve racking to publicly come out as like, queer, because there's always going to be those people who will call you really bad names.

You can't always tell who's anti-trans, anti-queer.

It's just a lot.

I've been out as queer for a while, since seventh grade, but um, that was just like, the people around me kind of.

But to actively, like, make a full video that's going on like, on TV is, it's a little bit more of added pressure.

The purpose of the GSA is to create a place where students of all identities can feel safe, regardless of who they are or how they appear.

When the story came out, yeah, there were some negative comments on YouTube, but we weren't surprised.

For us, we just wanted to make sure people understood that there's a journey that every child goes through.

They need a chance to tell their story so we can understand and maybe, you know, we can all make this world a better place.

With stories like this, there's positive comments, there's the negative comments.

People are allowed to have opinions, even if I don't agree with them and if I think they're hurtful.

I wanted people to like, know we’re the same as you; we’re high school students; we’re turning into adults, we're going to be queer adults, we're not going anywhere.

We're just here, just the same as you are.

HIKI NŌ does give a platform to students to speak their truth, I guess, to share their stories, share another person's story.

So, for this platform to just be like, mainly students telling stories, choosing their stories, like, it's great to me.

I really, really like it.

HIKI NŌ is a very powerful tool for our students.

It gives them a chance to express what's going on.

It gives us insight into their world.

The impact on our students is they feel empowered.

Getting to see other queer people in like, media, online, YouTube, Instagram, it's really something that helped me discover who I was.

So, I'm hoping that other, um, young people that are in high school discovering who they are, whether they're queer or not, um, I think that it is valuable for them to just learn about others’ journeys.

I want to go into journalism.

Doing this story kind of also helped me push me to actually going to college.

It only strengthened my desire to go into journalism or a creative writing class at the very least.

Again, I'm really honored that I got the opportunity to create this story, to share my story, to just express who I am to a wider audience.

[slow piano music] My name is King James Mangoba and I'm a proud graduate of Hilo High School from the class of 2023.

I've always been interested in making videos, since when my freshman year I was like, doing a vlog and just like putting them on YouTube.

And then I've heard of KVIKS Media, they said that it was like a video production Broadcasting Club.

So, I was just like, oh, yeah, that's like a kind of like a right place for me to join.

And one of the first projects that I've been assigned to KVIKS Media was to be part of the HIKI NŌ team for the Spring Challenge of that year.

And I had no idea what HIKI NŌ was.

So, I just decided to say yes.

A HIKI NŌ challenge is a limited time challenge where a group of students get to create a story within a limited timeframe.

At the beginning, I was so overwhelmed because they told me to like, we need to interview people, we need to find a story.

So, I was like, very terrified.

But that story was about the ELL department, the English Language Learners department program at my school, and that story was very close to me because I was once an ELL student.

Living in Hawai‘i, many people do not speak English as their mother tongue.

Hilo High School teacher Mrs. Marino would teach the students English and high school curriculum.

So, that story was just about how the English Language Department in my school reached out to the ELL students during the COVID time because at the time, many of the ELL students were low income.

For my students, it was the first time many of them had a computer at home.

I came from the Philippines in 2017.

I think at the time, I was just really challenged because it's really hard for me to understand and speak the language of English.

Having programs like English Language Learners program will help me settle down to this new place of mine, which is Hawai‘i, that I now call my second home.

I'm really happy that we were able to share the stories of the ELL program and get recognized from the viewers of PBS Hawai‘i.

She came up with a way to help them overcome their shyness and learn English using technology.

When it comes to fall of 2021, HIKI NŌ had this Triple Crown Challenge.

I think the prompt at the time was more than - more than meets the eye.

So, when I then suggested to the group that wasn't fit, do a story on, uh, on my experience on learning how to drive.

Since I live a long side of school, my dad always reminded me that I need to learn how to drive as soon as possible.

At first, I was terrified, terrified of being on the road and the idea of getting an accident.

I felt like a whole different person when I was doing that, turn till now, but I like watching it back now, because, uh, it's just, that was just a really cool piece that we work on, and we worked really hard on, too.

I think all the late nights editing really paid off when, since receiving the first-place award.

Having to film all those and having to edit all those within this four days of challenge, it was kind of stressful, but it was also rewarding because HIKI NŌ challenge was just basically a way for us to push our limits and boundaries within storytelling.

And it was just really cool to see myself on TV.

And my grandparents and my parents were just so proud that I made it and I got my license, and I got it on TV, and I did my student reflections and I won an award for it.

So, they were just really proud of me when I did this story.

I was really happy that we were able to do a story on our ELL program and learning how to drive because so many students and teenagers in Hawai‘i right now are like maybe facing a similar experience with that, and having that out in the world and having that story, um, air, I think it's really important because it makes people know that what, whatever you're experiencing is valid, and I think it's really important to have stories that the youth of Hawai‘i can resonate to, and how we can improve the world better by having our stories out there.

Pele, let's do some love in the water, and let's get him out.

So, that's kind of how the story of the boiling pots took place.

Having students do a story that meets the PBS Hawai‘i standards is really rewarding, and attending HIKI NŌ workshops really helped me learn from the best of the best in the industries and learning firsthand from them.

And I've learned so much from them, such as how to do sequencing, how to do a better, um, how to get a better audio, and how to do a story that impacts people and how you can connect with people with it.

I think really being involved in school has really helped me overcome the homesickness that I've experienced since immigrating here.

Since HIKI NŌ was such a big, um, eye opener for me.

Um, my plans for the Fall is I will be attending the University of Hawaii at Mānoa to study communications and continue the knowledge and the experience that HIKI NŌ and KVIKS have started on me.

I want to continue that moving forward and develop a career out of it.

[outro music]