Island Voices
Unity needed to help our kids
By Mike Coleman
Founder and director of Like A Child (www.likeachild.cc or 524-4139)
Like A Child is a nonprofit youth outreach agency based on the premise that it is many of the at-risk children of today who will fill our prisons tomorrow.
The statistical evidence is overpowering: from the 70 percent of prisoners' children who will become prisoners themselves to the statistics for the severely abused, impoverished, and so on. The only meaningful solution to crime, addiction and prison overcrowding lies in an effective and practical model for total youth outreach.
Like A Child is such a model. Building on what we call a "network under the cracks," LAC invites agencies and community resource programs to participate in reaching every single disadvantaged child. We call for a symposium to raise community awareness, where every agency can interconnect to "Touch 'em All," as Garth Brooks calls it.
If that sounds daunting, consider that the resources required are far outweighed by the ones we waste today on the prisons these children are destined to inhabit.
There are many children suffering right now who desperately need our help. Some ask why we need one more children's agency and the answer is obvious: Until we reach them all, there will never be enough.
LAC is a relatively new agency, and yet we still find an endless stream of kids whom no one else is helping. This was poignantly highlighted at a recent meeting in the mayor's office when John Sabas, deputy director of community services, asked the three boys I brought there whether they had ever heard of various agencies only to be answered with shrugs. Since then, Sabas and Abelina Shaw, the mayor's chief of staff, have extended their welcomed assistance.
We have taken these kids to the beach, the zoo and the state fair — you have never seen a happier bunch of kids than these when we pick them up every Sunday.
For all the kids we do reach, there are countless more whom we don't have the money to help.
LAC seeks to change the ways we say no to children. From controversial schools to the thousands of parents we have imprisoned for their addictions, from the 8 percent of homeless-service users who are children to the 31,000 kids in Hawai'i without health insurance.
Fortunately, not everyone says no: Dr. Karlyn Ko and her nurses at Queen's Medical Center took care of an 8-year-old boy from Kuhio Park Terrace housing who had injured his foot severely. These kind people saw the need and acted, regardless of insurance coverage.
Unfortunately, I have encountered obstacles when trying to help children. When I took six of them to the Salvation Army's Palama Settlement location to get them clothes for school, they were refused assistance on the grounds that they must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
When I visited Aaron Lo at Catholic Charities he acted immediately: Each child was given three new T-shirts and a voucher redeemable at Goodwill stores.
Until we make a concerted effort to say yes to children in need, to reach out to all of them, to provide them with clothes, homes and good schools, we won't have enough prisons for these kids when they become what kids become when we say no.
