“Action 15” Community Resilience Research is a continuation of the Ola Resilience Strategy for Oʻahu created in 2019: https://resilientoahu.org/resilience-strategy. The Ola resilience plan calls for 44 actions to help create a more resilient Oʻahu based on 4 Pillars of Resilience. In our Action 15 Research, we are most focused on “Bouncing Foward” as we face natural disasters.
Action 15, is the 15th action we can take of the 44 actions identified in the plan.
The goal of this research is to identify 8 to16 possible sites for Community Resilience Hubs in each of the major planning areas of Oʻahu. The Action 15 research is being conducted by researchers at CERENE in collaboration with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in partnership with the City and County Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resilience to build on the work of the Ola Resilience Strategy. Click HERE to meet the Action 15 Research Team!
Community Resilience Hubs are community-led initiatives and often are based on existing organizations that provide support to their local community. Across the country, as the need has grown, the Community Resilience “model” has spread as a new way to organize and prepare for natural disasters.
These Hubs, though often run by an existing non-profit, operate in collaboration with local government and serve the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods. They operate during “blue skies” and “gray skies” or during emergencies and offer a suite of essential services to the community.
Our goal with CERENE is to support the growing network of Community Resilience Hubs (CRH) on Oʻahu and help facilitate conversations regarding specific design needs associated with new CRHs here. If you would like to follow this research, please sign-up to follow our work via the Google Form HERE.
Our work with Action 15 and identifying community resilience hub sites has begun! We have entered the first phase of our research with the distribution of an island-wide survey. If you would like to take the survey, you can sign up HERE. In the next phase of the process, we will be hosting a series of community workshops and focused design conversations with each neighborhood across the island. You can join in on your local neighborhood conversation by selecting the option in the forms above or email us at cerene15@hawaii.edu with any questions.
We are excited to embark on this co-learning journey with you and provide our support! Please keep in touch and let us know what you think. We would love to hear from you 🙂
Project Leads and Funding
CERENE at Kapi’olani Community College is taking the lead in the community engagement portion of the project utilizing our incredibly talented new team of Resilience Corps Leaders and Undergraduate Researchers.
The University of Hawaii Department of Urban and Regional Planning is creating all the maps (for the site suitability analysis) and took the lead on the islandwide survey that was distributed in April 2022.
The Office of Climate Change Sustainability and Resilience is the main partner on the project, KCC and UHM are contracted to work for them and will report the findings to them for inclusion in their Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plans and future resilience planning efforts.
The funding for the project comes from HI-EMA / FEMA.
Please write us with any questions at cerene15@hawaii.edu