When I was a child, we didn’t have to go far for a snack. On long afternoons riding bikes with friends, we’d stop along the way to pick mango, lychee, or guava straight from our neighbors’ yards. We always asked first, of course, and more often than not, the answer came with a smile and a story. Nobody minded. That was just how things were. Food was shared, not sold. The ʻāina was generous, and so were the people.

Too often, workforce efforts are siloed; training programs are separate from employer needs, educational systems are disconnected from cultural identity, and economic opportunities do not always reach our most underserved communities. But when we apply laulima, we shift the paradigm. We begin to see that workforce development is not just…