[intro music plays] [sound of beach waves] HIKI NŌ, Hawai‘i’s new wave of storytellers.

Aloha, and welcome to the special 2021 Winter Challenge Edition of HIKI NŌ We were all a part of award-winning teams in this year’s Winter Challenge.

And we were among the many students whose teams had just four days to complete a story based on the theme “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” the reverse version of the old saying “Home is where the heart is.” The stories were scored based on how well they expressed the theme, how well the stories were told and how well video production enhanced the telling of the story.

Based on their cumulative scores, a team could receive an honorable mention or take third, second or first place in their respective divisions: middle school or high school.

Over the next half hour, you’ll find out the results of the competition, and you’ll see how each team interpreted the prompt “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” [sound of ocean waves] And now, the results.

Receiving an honorable mention in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is Leilehua High School on O‘ahu.

Congratulations.

Hi, I’m Rona Uclusin, a junior at Leilehua High School on O‘ahu.

On behalf of our Challenge team and our teacher, Mrs. Deena Cabralda, I’m proud of our honorable mention in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When we learned that the prompt for this Challenge was “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” we decided to focus our story on the Pakadas.

As a military family, they jump from home to home every few years.

But no matter where they live, family is the most important part of their lives.

Now here is our interpretation of the theme “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” As a senior at Leilehua High School, Theresa Pacada has already moved five times in her life.

She has been moving from place to place just about every few years.

Her family moved from one house to another in Georgia, Texas, California and now, Hawai‘i.

With so many different experiences, she provides a unique perspective on how heart really is where the home is.

Home is where the military sends us.

That’s what my dad says, and I agree.

I believe home is found within my family, and that no matter where we are in the world, family will always be the constant foundation of security and affection.

For Theresa, constantly moving around frequently impacted her relationships with her family and friends.

Moving around, I think, developed a strong sense of trust between my family and I.

If not, then a sense of unity.

Unlike other people who live in places for a long time, we don’t get to make those lifelong friends or relationships that seem to last a lifetime because it’s not possible.

So, knowing that my family will always be there, and I’m there to support them, is really comforting.

I think having each other is the only constant thing in our life.

I only keep in touch with recent friends, and that’s because most of them are kept through social media, and it’s really hard to keep up with.

And as you move, boxes get lost, so a lot of photos and memories are lost with it.

So, I end up forgetting these people as I move to different places.

But I just come to terms with the fact that we all move around and have no choice but to move on.

Theresa’s family is currently stationed at Schofield Barracks.

Moving to Hawai‘i has had a dramatic impact on her own identity and her outlook on community.

The community definitely changed my perspective of how I viewed the world.

Unlike the Mainland, the community here on the Islands is much more supportive and welcoming.

I feel like people here appreciate you as who you are instead of what you are, and that’s something that you don’t see a lot.

My family definitely taught me how to be a more appreciative.

Instead of focusing on what we don’t have or what we didn’t do, I learned how to live in the moment and not to dwell in the past, and to appreciate what I did do, and what I do have, and I don’t think I can learn that lesson anywhere else.

This is Rona Uclusin from Leilehua High School for HIKI NŌ.

[sound of beach waves] Coming in third place in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is Saint Louis School on O‘ahu.

Congratulations.

Hi.

My name is Makana Viloria, and I’m a senior at Saint Louis School on the island of O‘ahu.

On behalf of our team and our teacher, Mr. Bulatao, I am excited about a third-place finish for the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When our team found out that the theme was “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” we decided to look at our teacher and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted her and her family.

Now, here is our interpretation of “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” [sound of birds chirping] With so much bad news out there, it gives me great pleasure to report something positive.

Mrs. Nani Vegas works at Saint Louis School as a teacher, and the Dean of Student Activities.

She’s also a mother of three and now, a new grandmother.

Family is everything, and the relationships that we’ve built with our family are forever.

It connects us to, um, everything in each other’s lives.

So, it’s the nicest thing to know that they are my pillars of strength.

My sisters, my brother-in-laws, my nieces and nephews.

So, family is absolutely everything.

On March 20th, 2020, she welcomed her granddaughter, Charlee Choo, into the world.

So, my, my granddaughter, we timed everything perfectly.

Spring break was coming up for us, and I put in my vacation time.

So, my granddaughter was born on the 20th of March, and I had my tickets ready to go.

Um, I was taking my mother as well, and my mother fell ill, and, uh, was diagnosed with cancer.

And we, we just had planned to just go regardless, and the pandemic hit.

Travel restrictions caused by the pandemic were responsible for thousands of planned trips being rescheduled or cancelled.

My daughter lives in Seattle, which was a hotspot, and it was bad.

And so, we had to cancel our flights, and, um, it was, it was devastating.

Uh, she’s my oldest daughter, and that’s my first grandchild.

So, not being able to be with her – and it wasn’t just for the birth.

I understood that because of the pandemic, that it would only be her and her husband in the hospital.

I get that.

But to not be able to help her at home as a first-time mom – because I had all the help.

My mother was up the street.

My cousins, my sisters, everybody was there to help us, and, with my first child, and I wanted to do the same for her.

Thankfully, Mrs. Vegas did finally get to meet her granddaughter.

No matter where my family is – I have three, three children.

My two daughters live in Washington, and my son is in Hilo.

And no matter where they are, I keep them in my heart through just the, the daily conversations that we have, obviously, FaceTime, but through pictures and videos that I can constantly go back to and remember.

It’s through those memories that keeps me connected because no matter where they are in this world, they will always be in my heart.

I am Makana Viloria of Crusader Media in Kailua reporting for HIKI NŌ.

There were no honorable mention or third-place winners in the Middle School Division.

Coming in at second place in the Middle School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is ‘Īao School of Maui.

Congratulations.

Aloha.

My name is Emma Jane Roy, an eighth grader at ‘Īao School on the island of Maui.

On behalf of our team and our teacher, Ms. Ishida, I am proud of our second-place finish in the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When we first learned that the prompt was “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” we were a bit confused about what it meant.

But after brainstorming, we realized that people have connected with each other in different ways.

Now, here is our interpretation of “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” Uh, this is their home.

You know, they’re here to, you know, learn.

Um, this is their livelihood.

They came here to, you know, have their friends work with them and their teachers.

Edward Garcia is a Leadership Academy teacher at ‘Īao School, who has been finding new ways to connect with the students through virtual learning.

The best part is when we did a lot of group work in breakout rooms, and the breakout rooms actually got them started in thinking better and they got their feedback.

Technology brought their hearts and minds, they opened them up.

It was like, wow, there is a world still out there.

For Mr. Garcia finding new ways to connect with his students has provided a new joy for his passion of education.

The power of education is where the heart is, and I hold that deeply because my passion of teaching and my passion of, uh, making sure that our, our future has education in the background, and I think that’s the beauty of the magic, where we will touch everybody’s lives in one way or the other, and I think that’s where the heart is, and I hold it deeply there.

Similar to Mr. Garcia, Shelley Dahilig has discovered new ways to connect in her field of ICU nursing.

Making sure that the patients feel comfortable with me taking care of them and having that rapport with them is really important for me, as a nurse.

Love, and people, and connecting to a person that way, um, really does help a person heal.

Although Shelley devotes herself to caring for her patients, she also makes sure to leave time for having fun with her family.

I remember my kids when they were younger because I used to stay home with them a lot, and then when they got older, we kind of, like, drifted apart a little bit, and all of our interests were different.

So, in this time, we’re able to do things and explore things together as a family that we wouldn’t normally do.

Like, I didn’t know that my kids would like fishing so much.

Realizing that my kids are still, um, are still connected to me has been nice.

Like, when – I guess when you think about love, you’re thinking about an emotion.

That’s something that’s not tangible.

But for me, um, love can be tangible because I’m putting all of that emotion into my family and my husband and my kids, and where I work.

And pride in where I work and what I do, pride in my, my kids and our relationship with each other, that’s where my heart is, and that’s where I live and where my home is.

This is Elias Tokuoka from ‘Īao School for HIKI NŌ.

[sound of beach waves] Taking second place in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is Kaua‘i High School in Līhu‘e.

Congratulations.

Hi.

My name is Via Javinar and I’m a freshman at Kaua‘i High School on Kaua‘i.

On behalf of our Challenge team and our teacher, Mrs. Aiwohi, I’m thrilled about our second-place finish in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When we learned that the prompt for this Challenge was “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” we thought there was no place that hits close to home than where your family is.

Now here is our interpretation of “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” You know, you just can’t get that kind of local grinds on the Mainland.

Laulau, mac salad.

Brah, I hungry now.

Dillon Ancheta always knew that he wanted to stay here in Hawai‘i.

I knew I didn’t want to go away.

I knew I wanted to work here, so I figure why not learn here?

Why not intern here?

Why not already get going on – with things that are going to still be relevant after I graduate college, you know?

That’s covering the local stories, the local people, things you can, you can never find anywhere else but Hawai‘i.

That’s what kept me here.

Another reason being my family, you know, um, just an island away.

Twenty-minute flight, um, that’s another thing.

And then also number three, the food.

You just can’t get that kind of local grinds on the Mainland.

Ever since the pandemic began, Dillon hasn’t been able to come back home to his family on Kaua‘i.

I haven’t gone home since last July, um, because of the travel restrictions and whatnot, and it’s really heartbreaking knowing that, you know, my grandparents are getting older.

My home will always be Kaua‘i.

Um, my family’s there.

Um, that’s, you know, where my lifetime memories are.

And Kaua‘i will always be my home.

Uh, tracing back to my childhood roots all the way to high school days, I consider myself a Kaua‘i boy through and through.

He does everything he can to keep in touch with his ‘ohana back at home.

I talk to them every single day.

Uh, most of the time, at the very minimum, it is a text message, uh, or a phone call on my days off.

FaceTime call my grandma.

We also like to send pictures of things, you know, so it’s not just a simple text.

It’s also, “Look at what I’m doing!” Or, “Look at what I just cooked!” You know, so, we’re doing the best we can.

Dillon has always had a strong sense of family unity, especially with his grandparents, who are very proud of the man he became.

Couple of hours after he was born, I was holding him, so we kind of bonded together, you know.

So that’s when I took him under my wings and told myself, “Well, I’m going to make life for him as good as I can.” Before he left Kaua‘i to go to, uh, UH, I told him, “You go over there and make things happen over there.

I’ll make things happen over here.” I must say, though, uh, he’s, uh, you know, in journalism.

He always wanted to do that.

Well with this, you know, pandemic, we haven’t seen him for almost a year, so – and we miss him so much.

Yeah, this holiday season was the first – It’s the first – – season he didn’t spend with us since he was born.

Dillon Ancheta’s heart has always resonated here in Hawai‘i, and he couldn’t be any happier being close to his family, friends and the local food.

For HIKI NŌ, this is Mikayla Pacheco Villanueva reporting.

[sound of ocean waves] And now, the first-place winner in the Middle School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is Maui Waena Intermediate School in Kahului.

Congratulations.

Hi, I’m Alyza Sitts-Leyva, a seventh grader at Maui Waena Intermediate School on Maui.

On behalf of our Challenge team and our teacher, Jennifer Suzuki, I am beyond proud of our first-place finish in the Middle School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When we first got the prompt, “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” we were a bit confused at first.

After all, we were used to saying home is where the heart is, not the other way around.

But when we thought about it more, our minds instantly went to family.

And with the thought of family, we instantly thought of our STEMworks after-school program.

To all of us, our after-school program has often felt like a second home, and a second family.

Now, here’s our interpretation of “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” I thought it was fine.

I went up that hiking trail.

Yeah.

For the students at the Maui Waena STEMworks program, which has had daily meets for over a decade, students produce videos, create CAD designs and engineer robots.

But the most important thing they build is – Family.

We’re so, like, close to each other that we can’t be separated.

Uh, he’s, like, meditating.

I think the main, um, reason that I come here is to inspire students.

I want to go into the STEM field, so every opportunity that I get to inspire students, or to even pull them out of a bad day because of the more than usual bad days that we have because of COVID, I think that’s the real value of being part of this club.

John Fabella was in sixth grade when he joined the STEMworks program.

He’s now a freshman in college at Southern Nevada Community College, and still attends the meets daily.

Right now, STEMworking, um, the STEMworks program, we went through Zoom, and me – them allowing me to be a mentor through it, and me interacting through Zoom, it really places your heart, you know, back at home.

You know, that’s where it is.

You realize that despite you being so far away, um, I can still help out the younger generation.

In 2010, Jennifer Suzuki started the STEMworks program with only 15 students.

Last year, prior to COVID, 115 students were enrolled, and about 75 attended daily.

The number of daily attendees has dropped with the online format, but STEMworks continues to run.

I didn’t want the kids to not have connection.

I didn’t want them to be just sitting at home alone.

So, um, we decided we’d continue.

I feel like once you’re part of my life, you are actually part of my heart and part of my family, and I don’t want to lose that connection.

I want all my students and all the people who come to our program to feel like they have a place to turn to that’s safe.

[students talk over each other] Media has always been sort of, like, my second home.

Even before COVID started, I spent probably more time there compared to being at home.

The screen separates us physically, right, but the fact that you’re interacting with people through it, you chose as your family is what makes it home.

We need to remember that COVID cannot take everything from us.

It cannot take our family.

It cannot take the things we love.

It cannot take our connections.

Those connections are the heart of the STEMworks program.

This is Alyza Sitts-Leyva reporting for HIKI NŌ.

[sound of ocean waves] And finally, the first-place winner in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge is Waiākea High School on Hawai‘i Island.

Congratulations.

Hi, I’m Taylor McCann, a junior at Waiākea High School on Hawai‘i Island.

On behalf of myself and Mr. Yamamoto, I’m very proud about my first-place finish in the High School Division of the 2021 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge.

When I first heard that the prompt was “Heart Is Where the Home Is,” I immediately knew I wanted to do a story on my friend, Levi, who, in spite of his disabilities, never fails to spread love around my home.

Now, here is my interpretation of the prompt, “Heart Is Where the Home Is.” I live with my husband, two of my daughters, and, um, my mom lives with us.

So, it’s kind of crazy.

A lot of people, and now, um, the blind cat as well.

Levi is our cat and we got him from the Hawai‘i Island Humane Society.

We went to an event, uh, it was at an adoption event where they had kittens available for adoption.

He had a lot of issues, and I don’t think a lot of people wanted to take on an animal with, with issues.

We fell in love with him instantly.

We decided to adopt Levi even though he’s special needs because he deserves a home, too.

The transition was tough, but with time, Levi was able to adjust to his new home.

Although, even on his best day, he still struggles.

He does bump into things a lot.

Obviously we have a swimming pool.

That was a major concern.

And so we’re very careful about letting him in the backyard and always watching him.

We have had a couple incidents where he has fallen into the pool, and thankfully, nothing bad happened and we were able to get him back out.

Levi also suffers from serious digestion issues, which severely affect his daily routine.

I have to give him medicine every day to help his digestion, and that, that’s hard.

We feel bad for him, and it – he gets a little annoyed by it.

One, two, three.

Good kitty.

OK, ready?

One, two, three.

Good kitty!

Good kitty.

Determined to make things work, the McCann family began to form new habits in accordance with Levi’s situation.

We started taking him on walks with a leash.

Trying to leash-train him was really time-consuming, and he’s not always – sometimes he just wants to lay down, and then we’d have to sit there.

So, what we started doing was we put the gate at the end of the driveway so that it allows him to run freely through the yard and he can’t get out.

Just over a year after Levi’s adoption, he’s become fully adjusted to his new home and his new family.

Well, we love him.

He brings us a lot of joy.

It – I said it’s a labor of love when I was out there walking him with a leash, because it’s not something you really want to do, but he’s special, and we just look at his little face, and you can’t help it.

I know a lot of people go now and adopt pets from shelters.

I absolutely encourage that, but I would really encourage you to ask them specifically if they have any special-needs pets.

Those pets tend to get stuck there and stay longer, and they could use a home, too.

This is Taylor McCann from Waiākea High School for HIKI NŌ.

Thank you for watching this special 2021 Winter Challenge Edition of HIKI NŌ.

We hope you enjoyed watching these award-winning stories as much as we’ve enjoyed creating them.

Each of us is deeply honored by the recognition our story has received.

But the four-day journey we took creating the story was just as rewarding.

Please be sure to tune in next week for more proof that Hawai‘i students HIKI NŌ – Can do.

[outro music plays] I was the co-writer and co-editor in Kalani High School’s story about The Canvas.

I was the co-writer and the co-editor on Kalani High School’s story of The Canvas.

The Canvas is supposed to be a nonprofit organization that gives students a place to come to after school.

We came up with the idea because I’m on the Canvas’s team.

I think it’s really difficult to do a story on something that you’re deeply involved in because you see it from the perspective of a person that already knows the backstory and already knows the background information, and so you automatically kind of assume that other people also know that same amount of information that you do, and work on the story from that kind of a perspective.

In the HIKI NŌ process of creating our video, the Canvas, when we first sent out our rough draft to Lurline, our mentor, she gave us several comments to go back and fix it.

When we first got feedback from Lurline, it was actually considered Arron’s video.

He was the one who was editing on it, but the more she gave us feedback, it kind of got frustrating because all of a sudden were changing the entire focus of this video.

But eventually, once I was able to take part and actually help with the editing, it got a lot easier, and the comments were more, um, positive, I guess.

Working with Arron was interesting.

It was very interesting, but at the same time, I feel like it was very beneficial because we have a very different, um, viewpoints on how to make the video.

We were able to just correct each other, even on, like, the small details of the video, and benefit off of each other’s different ways that we approached the video.

They had arguments, they disagreed, but they came finally to a solution that they both could live with, and they’re really close friends now.

I’m so glad to see that.

One of the major things that I learned about being on HIKI NŌ is really being able to persevere.

Whatever obstacles you face, it’s always important that you keep trying and keep trying to make the best video that you want.

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