ABSTRACT
Keiki is the common Hawaiian word for child, and Keiki Steps is a parent-participation preschool program for Native Hawaiian children. Unlike most early childhood programs, Keiki Steps was not the brainchild of early childhood professionals. Rather, it grew from the initiative of a mother of two young children. In 1998 Michelle Mahuka, who resides with her family in the Hawaiian homestead community of Nānākuli, saw a television ad about parent- participation preschool programs (also called play morning programs) and thought that she would like to take her children to participate in such a program. When she called the agency that had sponsored the ad, she was informed that there was no parent-participation preschool program to serve her rural community. Such a program had once been available in Nānākuli but had closed three years earlier (Roberts, 1993). Mahuka learned that the nearest available program was in a suburb several miles down the highway, a cultural context and environment quite different from her own rural neighborhood. She decided to see if a parent-participation preschool program could be started in Nānākuli, to serve all the families with young children in the community.
