Freedom to drive motivates at-risk teens

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Rowel Yasay started driving when he was 12.

Semisi Uluave, left, a program specialist with Adult Friends For Youth, taught Kitson Kumoa of Halawa how to drive and helped him get his license. The program tries to help some of the most alienated young people "fit in" with society. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Kitson Kumoa was 14 when he first got behind the wheel in Guam.

None of them bothered to get a driver's license.

"Everything was all my own rules," Yasay said. "I would do any kine thing without realizing all the consequences."

If they worried at all, it was only about getting caught by police.

"I'd be all paranoid when I was driving," Kumoa said. "I was always hoping I wouldn't get caught."

Today, however, all three teenagers have their driver's licenses, an accomplishment they savor as they try to leave their troubled youth behind and become productive citizens.

"Getting their license is just one step in a whole process helping them do the responsible thing," said Sidney Rosen, head of Adult Friends for Youths, which for four years has incorporated the driver's license training into its broader outreach and counseling efforts to help some of the most alienated young people on O'ahu.

Most youths in the program are gang members from Honolulu's poorest neighborhoods. Many see themselves so far down the social and economic ladder that they don't feel any need to live by society's rules.

"For some there's already been a time in their life when they didn't care whether they lived or died," Rosen said. "They just don't see themselves as fitting in."

A driver's license, though, is tangible proof that they do belong. More than anything — more even than a high-school education or family and friends — it opens the door to mobility and the means to get a job. In turn, that means a steady income, their own car and a chance for an improved life.

"I had a car at home, but my family wouldn't let me drive it until I got my license," Yasay said. "Now I can go around looking for a job or just cruise without having to depend on a lot of other people."

Like others in the program, Yasay knows he was headed for trouble before he got involved with Adult Friends for Youth.

He was born in Waipahu, but first started driving in the Philippines, where he says "there are no road rules at all." He spent two years there from age 11 to 13. Back home, he started hanging with a Waipahu gang, a group that always seemed to have a car available, if not a licensed driver.

Yasay said he watched as a lot of his friends ended up in O'ahu Community Correctional Center or Halawa High Security prison.

"If I hadn't hooked up with Adult Friends for Youth, you'd either see me there, too, or hiding out somewhere," he said.

Rosen said Adult Friends for Youth first started its driver licensing work when it noticed that more than 80 percent of the gang members it was working with were driving illegally.

"That's a frighteningly large number of kids out there driving by the seat of their pants without any knowledge of the rules of the road," Rosen said. "It's not that they are not interested in getting a license. It's just that for them it's sometimes easier to do just what they've been doing and not worry about putting themselves in legal jeopardy."

Using a grant from the state Transportation Department's Safe Community Highway Safety Program, the group developed a drivers' program that could be integrated into its work with gangs. The $25,000 grant pays for some drivers' education through the Adult Friends for Youth clinical staff and helps pays for permits and licenses when the 18- to 25-year-olds can't afford them.

This year, the program has helped 33 gang members ages 18 to 25 members get their learning permits and another 14 receive their licenses. After three years of the program, the number of at-risk youths reported driving without a license fell from 81 percent to 77 percent, still too early to tell if the program is having a ripple effect in the larger community, Rosen said.

"It's a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing," he said. "The rebellious part of them doesn't care at all whether they get a license. The other part knows that if they do get it, they'll have fewer problems with the police."

Kumoa said he never thought about getting a license when he dropped out of school in his junior year and started running around the Pu'uwai Momi housing area with a gang.

It was only after he got into the program that he started thinking about getting a high-school diploma from night school and going on to become a chef or computer programmer.

"Without a car, you're stuck. I couldn't get to the classes without transportation," he said. "The bus is OK, but driving gets you where you want to go. Without a car, you just stay in the house and get bored and irritated."

With his license in hand, Kumoa has started applying for jobs at the Makalapa Shopping Center, including work at the Checker Auto Parts store. He says there's a Honda Prelude car waiting for him, once he can save enough money to pay for its upkeep.

Trono said he would have liked to have taken driver's training at Farrington High School, but couldn't get into the school's limited program and couldn't afford private training. State law requires all drivers under 18 to take classes before they can get a license, but officials say there aren't enough teachers in public schools to let everyone participate.

Instead, Trono and his friends would ride the bus to Pearlridge or Ala Moana Center. During the recent bus strike, he said, "we were just stuck at home. There was no place to go."

Getting the license is just one step along the way for many of the youths, Rosen said.

"It's one thing they can accomplish from beginning to end, and it shows them there are other things they can be successful at in the long run," he said.

Yasay, who has been in the program for three years, says he was suspicious of the counselors at first, but they've helped him envision himself having even more success in the future.

"I'm planning to take the military test and join the Coast Guard," he said. "I want to see a lot of different things."

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.