Reflections on Success: Health Center Voices

Hawaii

Waikiki Health Center
Honolulu

In Honolulu, Waikiki Health Center’s Youth Outreach Project (YO) is the only source of help and guidance available for the estimated 200 homeless youth who live in Waikiki’s parks, abandoned buildings, or on the streets at any given time. YO offers counseling, medical care, mental health services, and most of all unconditional support. Brandi, a YO client, was smoking ice by age 12. She first visited YO at age 14 when she was homeless. Over the years, YO referred Brandi to a treatment center for pregnant women with drug abuse problems; she struggled to “stay clean.” YO helped Brandi get her GED. She eventually enrolled at a local community college taking courses in social work. Brandi is now working for the agency that she feels gave so much to her—Brandi is a YO Outreach Worker at Waikiki Health Center. “YO saved my life,” Brandi says. “If I can touch one life and do for that person what YO did for me, then everything I went through will be worth it.”

Waikiki Health Center also provides HIV Early Intervention Services which has been delivering primary medical care to people living with HIV/AIDS since 1986 and offers one of the most comprehensive HIV programs in Hawaii. Paul Kaleolani Smith is an HIV/AIDS advocate and has been an AIDS patient since 2001. Waikiki Health Center has provided Paul with the medical nutrition therapy and food supplements he urgently needs often with the help of grants from the M•A•C AIDS Fund (established by M•A•C Cosmetics) and others. “I wouldn’t be alive today if I didn’t have dietary and nutritional supplements. When I had very little choices with HIV meds and needed to wait for new ones to get approved, I needed food and supplements to heal me…I had many digestive problems and worked closely with the (Waikiki Health Center) dietitian who gave me supplements provided by a MAC grant to stay alive.” Paul is currently a member of Waikiki Health Center’s Board of Directors.