Fri, 01/19/2018
By Debbi Amaral
Early Childhood Services Director
Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc.
Click HERE to access the article in The Maui News as published!
From the very beginning, one of Head Start’s brilliant strategies centered on engaging the community to help deliver services to children and families. As part of that effort, for the last 50-plus years, nonprofit community action agency Maui Economic Opportunity in the state of Hawaii has been committed to helping low income individuals and families become stable and achieve economic security through a variety of services.
And though we live on a tropical island that outsiders might consider as a “paradise,” families residing on Maui with young children face the same challenges experienced by impoverished communities in the continental United States: high unemployment, limited access to proper health-care, lack of mental health services, substance abuse, domestic violence—and the dwindling resources needed to address all of these inequities.
MEO’s outreach includes a Head Start program that serves 246 children in 13 centers on Maui and Molokai. For the last 20 years, one of MEO’s Head Start centers has been located on the University of Hawaii Maui College. This free, on-campus preschool enrolls children of Maui College students as a first priority, and it also serves families living nearby.
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Categories: Our Voice Tags: College, Hawaii, head start
