Mana'o from Fall 2021 participants...

"One thing I learned about Brother Aiu was that he was a Native from Hawai’i which I found very interesting because typically, when we think of missionaries and Marianists we think of them being from the mainland or somewhere foreign. Overall, the workshops I’ve attended helped me to better understand the impact Marianists like Brother Aiu has had on Hawai’i."

"I learned that Hawaiian language is passed through spoken language at that there is strength in that because it needed to mean something because there is so much power behind words."

"Word is both life and death to cultures with no written language."

"Kumu taught us in the few lessons we had the importance of ‘Ohana, ‘Aina, and Hana, and how though we can’t choose who our family is or where we grow up, we have control of our own life and the destiny we follow."

"I learned that Brother Oliver Mahealani Aiu went to St. Louis School, which shares a campus with Chaminade, then entered the Marianist Novitiate in New York. He devoted a lot of his life to teaching and the enhancement of education of various places. He came back to Kalaepohaku and to Chaminade to contribute as well."

"Coming into this service learning , I knew that whatever I knew about the Hawaiian language would be debunked. In my years of being in Hawai`i, I've learned some basic words such as Kolohe, Aloha, Kumu and so on and so forth. In this service learning, I learned so much more like the fillers in sentences and how the Hawaiians back then used words and TRUSTED you rather than writing a contract just like in the present day. I really loved this class, it always kept me on my toes. I would highly recommend this class to everyone."