{"id":6335,"date":"2021-02-12T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/?p=6335"},"modified":"2021-11-19T12:27:40","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T22:27:40","slug":"20-for-the-next-20-josie-howard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/20-for-the-next-20-josie-howard\/","title":{"rendered":"20 for the Next 20: Josie Howard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally posted on Hawai\u02bbi Business Magazine’s site of Feb. 20, 2021. To view, click here https:\/\/www.hawaiibusiness.com\/20-for-20-josie-howard\/<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Josie Howard<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Executive Director,
We Are Oceania<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

During surges of COVID-19 in the Islands last year, Jocelyn \u201cJosie\u201d Howard and another We Are Oceania staff member took food, masks, dignity bags and other personal necessities to more than 100 Pacific Islander families every month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the nonprofit added staff and increased donations to more than 200 food boxes and 600 hot meals every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The efforts were just Howard\u2019s latest in a lifetime spent supporting her fellow Micronesians in Hawai\u2018i \u2013 who at times throughout last year suffered more than a quarter of all confirmed coronavirus cases while being just 4% of the local population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe this is my calling and my purpose,\u201d Howard says. \u201cFrom a young age I left home and sacrificed a lot to be educated so that I can learn how to care for my community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard says she left her Chuuk home on Onoun Island, in the Namonweito Atoll, at 13 for high school on another Micronesian island; at 20 she came to Hawai\u2018i for advanced college, hoping to train as a physician and then take her expertise home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But with no hospital or electricity on her island, she rethought her plan and decided to focus on making life better for Micronesians who had come to Hawai\u2018i seeking better jobs, health care and lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was such a great need for service providers to understand how to work specifically with our people, and we realized at the same time that our people needed help to navigate the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard has also worked in Department of Education schools as a cultural resource for Pacific Islander students and families, and also at Goodwill Industries. Her community often turns to her for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNavigation is not only for the ocean, it\u2019s for life,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou navigate the currents of life. My grandfather told me that to be home, and to be able to be whole, you have to be palu: a master navigator in navigating life. At home they know how to navigate, but when they come here they don\u2019t, so having a onestop is a start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what We Are Oceania has become: a one-stop center that guides Pacific Islanders through whatever needs or concerns they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lillian Segal, who serves on We Are Oceania\u2019s board, says Howard is a constant source of inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m always learning from Josie,\u201d writes Segal in an email. \u201cJosie is a strong, compassionate and dedicated leader who works tirelessly for her community on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are so proud of our mentee program, We Are Oceania’s Executive Director, Josie Howard, who was selected for Hawaii Business Magazine’s “20 For the next 20,” honoring people whose talents, accomplishments and potential set them apart as emerging leaders of Hawai\u02bbi for the next 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":6337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,20,414,102],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-6335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-news","category-openarmsharbor","category-wao","tag-covid19"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7400,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6335\/revisions\/7400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}