Monday, February 26, 2007

The Pacific Islander Access project

Aloha and welcome to the Pacific Islander Access project's webpage!

The Pacific Islander Access project, or "the P.I.A. project" for short, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation working to expand educational opportunity for America's growing Pacific Islander community.

Some people are unfamiliar with Pacific Islanders, though many Pacific Islanders call America their home. Many people are unaware that Pacific Islanders are significantly underrepresented in higher education. And most don't realize that while there are numerous scholarships, fellowships, and other academic programs for underrepresented minorities, many of these programs don't recognize that Pacific Islanders are underrepresented.

Our goal is to educate those academic programs for underrepresented minorities (aka "URM academic programs") that exclude Pacific Islanders, and persuade them to allow Pacific Islanders to apply along other underrepresented minorities. (If you happen to be part of one of these academic programs, please follow this link to read materials we developed specifically for you: LINK)

We put this webpage/blog together to make our information easily accessible. By clicking on the links below, you can learn more about us, Pacific Islanders, how Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in higher education, and how they are excluded from too many URM academic programs.
If you are looking for more information about our plan, who some of our supporters are, or how you can help, check these links out:
Also, feel free to check out the external links. They include U.S. Census data on Pacific Islanders and higher educational attainment in the United States.

Though it may read like something between the usual website and a blog, we hope you will find the format easy to navigate. If you have any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us at piaproject@hotmail.com.

Me ka ha'aha'a (with humility),

Kawika
CEO and Founder, P.I.A. project

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Vinho, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://vinho-brasil.blogspot.com. A hug.

Sha said...

I wanted to commend you on such a wonderful project. I would like to extend our help, at Islanesia, in whatever way possible.

While I can understand why the US Census groups Pacific Islanders with Asians, I also wish we could be acknowledged as an entirely separate ethnic identity.

Again, thank you for your efforts-- our community needs more recognition and culturally-knowledgeable services.