“The dreams of concerned residents are being realized as Kokua Kalihi Valley is providing a coordinated community aide-health center program of services.

Two large surplus trailers have been transformed from navy-gray to medical-white to help meet the medical and dental needs of the 17,000 Kalihi Valley residents. Five community aides (three Filipino, one Samoan, and one Chinese) provide the necessary contact with residents to help overcome language, cultural, and transportation barriers.

Generous and excited granting boards provided almost $50,000 for Kokua Kalihi Valley's first year of operation. Thousands of man-hours have been volunteered to renovate the trailers, staff the clinics, and provide secretarial assistance.

What is responsible for this impressive response to this new project? It began with a group of concerned and dedicated residents who were willing to commit large blocks of time from November, 1971, through February, 1972, to provide the necessary study to uncover real rather than imagined needs and the adequate planning to provide approaches which actually help meet those needs.

In March, 1972, a community board of directors was formed with two-thirds of the twenty-one members being residents of the three census tracts to be served (C.T. 63-65) and the other one-third being non-residents being a commitment to the area. Planning committee chairman Henry Webb was elected president of the new board and has provided positive leadership enabling the board to act effectively in being both responsible and responsive. Working together in a spirit of enthusiasm and understanding, the board members have involved themselves in setting the philosophy of person-centered healing and reconciliation, filtering out priorities in the continuing process of discovery of needs and responses to needs, and making necessary decisions by consensus.

A number of these board members gave countless hours of volunteer time, such as: Dr. Charles Judd, a soft­ spoken, compassionate surgeon who has given leadership to the health center; Dr. Ron Carlson, an aggressive, innovative young dentist committed to the concept of preventive dentistry; and Kenneth Leong, long-time community resident and Lutheran lay leader, who patiently brought the trailers closer to completion.

The spark of the project from its inception bas been Joris Watland, a visionary, tireless Lutheran minister, who has led the organization as its Executive Director -­ training and supervising staff, exciting and motivating donors, and coordinating the vast task of obtaining and preparing the trailer clinics for service.

The genius and uniqueness of Kokua Kalihi Valley is the team of sensitive, observant, and responsive community aides - all community residents with varied backgrounds and abilities to contribute. By coordinating the health center services and a wide variety of community resources with their own knowledge, skills and abilities to relate to people, they can truly provide comprehensive family services.

There is much to be done in the second year of operation. (1) The board of directors needs to be strengthened with members who are willing to become more actively in­volved in the project itself. (2) Special advisory committee can be formed of language/cultural groups (such as Filipino and Samoan) which can discuss concerns in their own language and elect representatives to the board of directors. (3) A membership drive is planned to get a broad community base with the possibility of having an annual meeting of members to elect board members. (4) Adequate financing will be a critical concern to main­tain the payroll for the vital community aide staff since significant revenues from the health center are not anticipated until mid-1974. (5) The goal of the health center is to have the clinics open full-time with a full range of medical and dental services. (6) The board will need to continue to study the child care situation to determine what our project might do in this area.

A solid but flexible foundation has been and is being laid for the continued meeting of needs of people in Kalihi Valley during this coming year and in the years ahead.”