On Monday, Dr. Thomas' guest is Bernie Ka'opio, Oahu elderly services manager for Alu Like. Alu Like has four senior centers on Oahu and throughout the islands to offer cultural activities, lunch, and education for native Hawaiian kupuna.

DR THOMAS: This morning I've got Bernie Ka'opio with me. She's been honoring Hawaii's kupuna for a long time and works with Alu Like. Bernie? Thanks for coming in.

BERNIE: Thank you, yes I work with the Ke Ola Pono No Na Kupuna Program, which translates to "the good health and living for the elderly. And our project is just one of twenty plus projects that are under the auspices of Alu Like.

DR. THOMAS: So, what does it mean for people. What do you do that helps the kupuna in Hawaii?

BERNIE: Well we are committed to the vision and mission of our founders which is to kokua native Hawaiians to achieving their potential for themselves, for their families and their communities. And so within the Ke Ola Pono Program, we offer educational, nutritional activities, based on culture, and we help them to relate to the things that possibly could help them in their daily living.

DR. THOMAS: Right. So you offer services to elders that say come in to the Center during the daytime, or…

BERNIE: Yeah, we're a half day program, and we're located on all of the five major islands so it's Kauai, Molokai, Maui, Big Island and Oahu. And the commonalities that we have within our project is we offer those nutrition and education classes through culture such as cultural activities.

DR. THOMAS: Right. And I've seen you in action. I've seen the organization and the people, and it's really beautiful. You blend culture and family and food and dance and song I have to say, I mean I was blown away. Really enjoyed being there, it really gave you a sense of real meaning and worth. It was terrific. Now in addition to all of that, you're staring something else, a new thing about helping people live with chronic illness. What's up with that?

BERNIE: Yeah, you know in our native Hawaiian community lots of our people have and suffer from chronic disease. So when he had the opportunity to partner with the county and the state to bring chronic disease self-management program to our program, we were able to help our kupuna to see that through small goals and real plans of action that they could make a difference in their own health.

DR. THOMAS: What I love about that, kind of the old way of thinking was the doctor knows everything, the doctor tells me everything, la la la. In the new way of thinking, and which you're helping the kupuna embrace, you become responsible in a lot of ways, for your health and to take care of the chronic illness that you have, so that you can have a good life and be there for your family and be there for the young people.

BERNIE: Exactly, it's a new way of looking at your own life and the things that you can manage and you control.

DR. THOMAS: I'm always in favor of that, always one of my big ideas that I like to concentrate on is decisions should belong to the elders or be as close to the elders as possible.

BERNIE: Exactly. That's what we try to encourage and one of the things that we're most proud of, is this ability that we have, and I think it's unique to our program, to help them make those connections as they come together and share with one another, and also share with the activities that we have through intergenerational activities.

DR. THOMAS: So what's the phone number for Alu Like if people want to know what's up…

BERNIE: Well they can go onto our website, it's alulike.org, or they can call our Kumu Kahi Department at 535-1328.

DR. THOMAS: Thanks Bernie.

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