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Waianae Intermediate football coach Kaipo Hanakeawe stands just a few yards behind his quarterback at a recent practice, making sure linemen are hitting their blocks and the defense is executing its assignments.

As he looks out at the more than two dozen teens trying to catch their breath, he sees more than just football players in need of coaching. He points to one boy who sometimes goes without dinner, another whose parents are dealing with drug addiction and a third whose brothers are in gangs.

Not all of them have stable home lives. So for a few hours each day, Hanakeawe and the coaches try to give them a sense of stability and routine.

“They treat the kids like they’re their own,” Hanakeawe said of the coaches. “The players are convinced we aren’t going anywhere.”

After-school programs that provide a safe place for youth on weekdays have taken on greater importance as teens on Oahu’s Westside say they feel increasingly unsafe after a series of violent incidents in the last year.

Some have involved youth. Last year, a shootout between two teenagers and another suspect left one of the teens dead. This year, at least have involved teenagers.

Middle school students on the Westside, most of whom did not want their names included in this story out of fear of retaliation from their peers, told Civil Beat that they see other students showing off weapons in school, including knives. High schoolers know students who carry guns with them at all times.

They’re afraid of getting into fights or being dragged into quarrels involving their relatives or friends. They think social media is having a negative impact on their lives. They say it’s not safe to go to the parks at night.

Some want to leave Oahu once they turn 18.

After-school programs may not offer all the solutions. But the teens said sports and extracurricular activities offered at intermediate schools and the provide a brief respite from those daily stressors and an outlet for them to stay out of trouble.

Several of the programs are looking for better ways to engage with kids about the recent violence and put the needs of youth and their families at the forefront of discussions on public safety.

Boys & Girls Club leaders and youth have made their presence known at town halls on the Westside focused on crime prevention. Internally, they’ve held listening sessions to find out what worries teens and what they need. Access to mental health services and low-cost sports clubs were on the list. So was more after-school programming.

At recent community meetings and town hall events, adults have also called for more after-school offerings and noted gaps in programming for teens in Makaha and Maile, where there are no intermediate schools. The program for middle schoolers is still building back from the pandemic. Some students don’t have reliable transportation to get to the Boys & Girls Club locations in Nanakuli and Waianae.

And while the after-school programs have been able to engage directly with keiki and the community, they don’t always feel as though they are reaching the people who really should be in those conversations, specifically those responsible for or involved in gun violence. And it’s not clear how to change that.

“It was a question we left on the table,” said Claudia Fernandez, chief operating officer of the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii. “We had ideas for reaching folks but the ones that need us or the ones that don’t want to or are not engaged — how do we reach them?”

Fighting Against Violence — And Stereotypes

At Waianae Intermediate, administrators have found success using sports as an incentive for students to stay out of trouble and keep their grades up.

Those programs are run in partnership with After-School All-Stars. Waianae Intermediate has some of the highest levels of participation on Oahu. Nearly a quarter of the 539 students at the school are involved in after-school programs.

One of the most popular is the tackle football program Hanakeawe helps run.

Registration for football clubs outside of school can cost hundreds of dollars, which does not cover the pads, cleats, helmets and other required equipment left for families to buy. Fundraising and grants have helped eliminate the cost to students and their parents, Hanakeawe said.

The violence has hit close for many of the coaches: Former players were among the victims.

Kashka Otto, , played for the Waianae Intermediate’s Jr. Seariders in middle school. So did Dayten Gouveia, who was paralyzed when a high-speed chase by Honolulu police officers that ended in a crash.

“It reminds us that our work isn’t over,” Hanakeawe said.

The team has talked about some of those cases at practice. The players have joined demonstrations against the violence in Waianae and created social media videos about the issue.

But they’re also fighting against stereotypes.

“Sometimes these kids feel less than other communities right off the bat,” Hanakeawe said. “People always brand them as being violent people, just because they come from Waianae. The mere fact that they come from here, people stereotype them to be acting a certain way. But a lot of my kids are simply not that way.”

After the shootings in Waianae Valley in September, the league that the Jr. Seariders competes in moved one of their home games to Waipahu. Later, another team wanted a game relocated out of Waianae. When the league refused, the team chose to forfeit instead of making the trip, Hanakeawe said. He thinks negative stereotypes played a role in that match.

Despite the off-field struggles, the team is finding success after several seasons of rebuilding the program following a drop in participation during the pandemic. The under-14s team is defending state champions and finished the fall season on Oct. 12 with a 5-1 record.

It’s become a point of pride. Team members said playing for their community and seeing their families on the sidelines keeps them going.

Paula Fitzell, director of After-School All-Stars, said the students at Waianae Intermediate are some of the best behaved in the state.

“It’s the small elements that create a bad name,” Fitzell said. “We want to dispute that as much as we can. The kids we see are very respectful, brought up very well.”

Participants in football or other programs like Glee Club and robotics are required to keep their grades up and attend at least one hour of tutoring each day. 

Discipline is also strictly enforced. Even minor rule infractions like name-calling could result in a three-day suspension from the program, Fitzell said.

The tough rules appear to be working.

Hanakeawe, who is also the dean of students at Waianae Intermediate and is in charge of discipline at the school, said rates of disciplinary incidents for students who participate in after-school programs are at least 35% lower compared to the rest of the school.

He said one boy on the football team was written up more than 52 times for violating school rules coming out of sixth grade. Those incidents have been in the single digits since he’s been in middle school.

‘It Can Happen To Any One Of Us’

When Inglish Jones first bought a home on the coast in the early 2000s, she balked at friends and family who worried that Waianae wasn’t safe. 

It’s where she wanted to raise her family. She recalls walking her kids to the beach at night and leaving all the doors unlocked when the family went to bed.

Now, times have changed. She constantly reminds her teenage daughter to be aware of her surroundings while she’s walking around. Jones’ adult sons get on her case if she forgets to lock the doors.

Otto’s death hit close to home: he used to play volleyball with her sons at the Boys & Girls Club.

“To know it can happen to any one of us, it scares my kids,” she said.

The Boys & Girls Club wants to be a safe haven for youth and families who want to have those kinds of difficult conversations about safety, Fernandez said.

The club brought teens and families together soon after the Labor Day shooting to identify safe and unsafe places on the Waianae Coast. The goal is to create a map of those areas to share with law enforcement and other community organizations, Fernandez said.

They’ve also started a new initiative called Project Hope, which began about a month ago. Fernandez and CEO Paddy Kauhane envision it as an umbrella for various efforts aimed at strengthening ties in the community, whether that’s through talk-story sessions or participating in community events.

In the meantime, the group is continuing its efforts to help students imagine a better future for themselves.

Each week, about 800 children participate across the three clubs on the coast – two in Nanakuli and one in Waianae. For teens, there’s a heavy emphasis on homework assistance, career development and substance abuse prevention.

The clubs try to fill in gaps left by a shortage of school counselors in the Department of Education. 

“We’re trying to work with the DOE to make sure the kids have what they need in life,” Kauhane said.

There’s a major emphasis on workforce development at the clubhouses. A found that more than 14% of youth aged 16-to-24 across the state were not in school and not employed.

Kauhane said mentors at the clubhouses want to put teens on a different path and broaden their horizons.

Mentors expose students to various career paths they could take after high school, whether that’s a four-year university or trade education. Mentors work with them on securing financial aid or exploring certification required for future jobs that they could attain in their senior year.

A cohort of students from the clubs visited colleges in Arizona and California last week, Kauhane said.

“It’s making them understand that they are worthy of the career path they choose so they can achieve whatever they want,” she said. “If a child has never left Waianae, it’s hard for them to imagine the other side of the island, let alone the rest of the world. Opening their worldview is so critical.”