PBS Hawaiʻi held a second live town hall to consider where we are, and where we want to be. Change is inevitable. Some changes come quietly, incrementally, over years; others seem to emerge all of a sudden and nearly full-blown.

This week’s episode of HIKI NŌ spotlights seven of the most outstanding stories from the winter quarter of the 2017-2018 school year. The seven selected stories also share a common theme: hope. The island residents featured in this show each express personal hopes for themselves, their families and their communities.

Rita Palafox left her sheltered plantation upbringing on Maui to join the Army straight after high school, and serve her country in the Vietnam War. Her 20-year career took her places beyond Hawai‘i – to Guam to recruit, and to the Deep American South, in the heart of Klan country.

On Friday January 26, 2018, student teams from twenty middle and high schools took on the 2018 HIKI NŌ Winter Challenge. The students had four days to conceptualize, shoot, write, record voiceovers for, and edit a story expressing the theme “A Special Place.

Daniel Kahikina Akaka is the only Native Hawaiian and the only member of Chinese ancestry serving in the U.S. Senate. Since 1976, he’s represented Hawai’i in Washington, D.C. - first in the House of Representatives and now in the Senate.

The leading cause of fatal injuries among 15-to-24-year-olds in Hawai‘i is suicide. On the next INSIGHTS, we’ll talk with local professionals who work with teens, their families and schools. We’ll also hear from Paul Gionfrido, CEO of Mental Health America, who calls suicide “a stage-four event in a mental illness.

Neva Rego is known by many as Hawai‘i’s Voice Coach to the Stars, the wind beneath their wings, with a list of vocal students that includes Robert Cazimero, Tony Conjugacion, Jimmy Borges, Jasmine Trias and Jordan Segundo, and a waiting list with more than a hundred names. Leslie Wilcox sits down with Neva to discuss how she followed her musical dreams, and how she shares her training and experience with her vocal students.

Our criminal justice system is a unique balance of moving parts – forces tasked with protecting the community, as well as the rights of the accused. INSIGHTS convenes representatives of these multiple forces, including American Civil Liberties Union Hawai‘i, the Prosecuting Attorney, the Public Defender and the probation system, for this live discussion.

Kaua‘i Chief of Police Darryl Perry. Hawai‘i Island Police Chief Paul Ferreira. From Maui County, Police Chief Tivoli Faaumu. And Honolulu Police Department’s new leader, Chief Susan Ballard. INSIGHTS brings you an unprecedented live broadcast – a conversation with our four chiefs.

If there’s really been a sea change – a new awareness and intolerance for sexual harassment of all kinds – millennials will be the generation that makes it stick. We’ll hear from local millennials about their views on the potential for a new era of enlightenment, respect and equality.