Cultural Approaches to Reducing Harm Across Moanānuiakea

In 2022, Papa Ola Lōkahi and Hawaiʻi Health & Harm Reduction Center release E hui ana nā moku: A harm reduction toolkit for Native Hawaiian communities.
Harm reduction through a Native Hawaiian lens embraces returning to the source. It’s a process to elevate Hawaiian ways of knowing and being, which are strongly connected to (w)holism, spirituality, and relationship to land.

According to FNHA, “culture is a medicine that can help us heal… In exploring culture as a strength, a source of resilience, a way to connect, and as medicine, we must consider how we can include people who use substances within our work by increasing access to culture.”

We are excited to share with you all, what a potential template for weaving in cultural practices throughout the pacific could look like when reducing harm in our communities. This will look different as every community has unique cultures and traditions.

Learning Objectives:

• Engage: participants will review the resource E hui ana nā moku: A harm reduction toolkit for Native Hawaiian communities and glimpse what a template for weaving in cultural practices throughout the pacific could look like when reducing harm in our communities caused by historical, cultural and intergenerational traumas.
• Identify: participants will identify the strengths, protection and resiliency within their own cultural practices as they embody social, emotional, mental, and physical health and healing.
• Understand: participants will understand how to weave their own cultural practices into the template provided.

REPLAY