Ranch Crew Takes On Big Brother Role

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Eleven Kaaawa keiki are being paired with 11 mentors from Kualoa Ranch in a new program that aims to improve the lives of “the littles” in this quiet Windward community.

The effort - described as “a big collaboration to help the littles of Kaaawa”- involves four partners: a site-based program of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Honolulu, Kualoa Ranch’s educational program and facilities, Kamehameha Schools cultural specialists,and artists from the Honolulu Academy of Arts Partners in Mentoring.

The ranch hosted a first meeting for Kualoa Bigs and Kaaawa Littles last Thursday night. The partnership begins Sept.13 with an introduction to aquaculture, learning how to cast a throw net and handling caught fish and shrimp. Future activities range from horse-manship, landscape and nature drawing to hands-on taro cultivation in a lo’i.

The free yearlong arrangement can accept 20 students and aims to nurture at-risk children from single-parent homes, those who need to develop socially, act out in school, or otherwise may benefit from the attention.

“We always use the one-on-one mentoring just to help (the children) with their social skills and hopefully it will translate to their education,” said Tyler Kurashige, site-based case manager with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Honolulu, which was approached about a possible partnership by Kualoa Ranch.

Little siblings, who were chosen with the help of Kaaawa Elementary School counselors, will spend after-school hours on the second Thursday of every month at the nearby ranch, which will bus the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders there and back.

Until recently, local BB/BS site-based mentoring produced only anecdotal benefits. A two-year study by an outside firm, however, confirmed what the nonprofit already suspected, Kurashige said:

“(The students) do a lot better in school especially after about a year. Their interactions are better with their peers ... better with their families. Even if it’s only once a month, there still are results that can be shown.”