20 for the Next 20: Alicia Higa, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center

Alicia Higa

Director of Well being Marketing, Waianae Coast Extensive Health and fitness Centre

Alicia Higa recollects a quotation from her position design and auntie Rell Sunn, who was acknowledged as the “Queen of Makaha”: “Take treatment of the land, take care of the ‘aina, go away things in a better location.”

That is her objective as director of wellness advertising at Waianae Coast Thorough Well being Middle.

Higa has seen the struggles and disparities her group faces while developing up on the West Facet of O‘ahu.

“(That) gives me an advantage into superior knowledge and viewing the demands of our group because I provide so quite a few of my friends, spouse and children and neighbors. It tends to make me much more informed of what will perform and what will not work,” she says.

She commenced at WCCHC in 2005 as an assistant with the tobacco cessation software and afterwards managed other courses. Higa states she finished up developing a new section and her present position to enable the many men and women dwelling on the Wai‘anae Coastline who require far better accessibility to healthier foodstuff and assist in adopting more healthy life.

Through the pandemic, the middle has sharpened its target even much more on food stuff accessibility, Higa says.

“Our community is recognised as a foodstuff desert. There is just not more than enough methods for our local community users to obtain superior, healthier, healthy food items.” So Higa created farmers marketplace venues and plans that incentivize the order of community meals.

According to Higa, WCCHC is the only corporation in the condition that runs an endless doubling application for SNAP recipients on the invest in of local produce and local proteins. The application will allow participants to purchase local merchandise and pay back 50 {b574a629d83ad7698d9c0ca2d3a10ad895e8e51aa97c347fc42e9508f0e4325d} value when they use SNAP advantages.

A person of her ambitions is to be certain the West Aspect does not have to rely on exterior foodstuff coming in, but has its own supplies. “By putting programming forth that will aid nearby food items generation but also assistance the well being of our group associates, it is definitely just a acquire-earn,” states Higa.

Joyce O’Brien, govt VP of administration at WCCHC states, “Her vision is always artistic, ahead-pondering with a good ‘can-do, how can we do this together’ mind-set.”

When she commenced at the center, Higa says she was insecure about herself and could never have imagined accomplishing what she is executing now. But she remembers a director telling her to hardly ever come to feel that she simply cannot do a little something.

She states that individual told her: “Because you are performing for our health center, and when you’re invited to communicate at a conference, it is due to the fact you are an qualified of your individual neighborhood.”