Middle and high school students from the early days of our HIKI NŌ education initiative and the half-hour TV magazine show are now in their 20s, attending college and entering the job market.

Here’s an update on some of those outstanding HIKI NŌ alums:

Christopher Kim was a student at Maui Waena Intermediate in Kahului when he co-hosted the very first edition of HIKI NŌ. A pastor’s kid, he spoke Korean at home with his family. Studying hard to master English words, he emerged as the Hawaiʻi State Spelling Bee Champion; won prestigious college scholarships; and is now a senior at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Alongside his University studies in computer science, he is a software-development intern at Oracle.

Victoria Cuba, from Waipahu in Central O‘ahu, found her way out of homelessness through HIKI NŌ. She shared her personal story, which she had long kept secret, in a HIKI NŌ episode. Her great attitude and strength of character evoked donations from the public and brought scholarships providing college tuition and dormitory housing at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. PBS Hawai‘i employed her throughout college as a student production tech. She did very well at school and work and landed a job as a news producer at ABC affiliate KITV4 Island News in Honolulu.

Kaitlin Arita-Chang, an H.P. Baldwin High graduate from Maui, earned a college degree at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and got her foot in the door as a staff assistant at the Capitol Hill office of U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono. Katie, as her friends call her, explains she was selected from a crush of applicants because of her ability to shoot and produce video for use in video news releases, using skills she learned in HIKI NŌ. Katie has since been promoted to Deputy Communications Director for Sen. Hirono.

Satoshi Sugiyama, an English-as-a-Second-Language student at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, was inspired by his HIKI NŌ experience to major in journalism at Syracuse University in New York. After graduating, he was selected for an internship at the New York Times and is now working as a bilingual reporter for the Japan Times.

We have more HIKI NŌ stand-outs from the early days of the program. If you find yourself worrying about what the future holds when youth are in charge, I suggest that you watch HIKI NŌ at 7:30 pm Thursdays on PBS Hawai‘i television, or anytime online at pbshawaii.org/hikino

These students will give you much hope for the future.

Aloha Nui,