Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo — Purpose, Background & Accomplishments
Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo is a Kanaka ʻŌiwi-led cultural health organization dedicated to Re-Membering and normalizing Hawaiian approaches to health, birth, and healing. Our work centers four interconnected foundations of wellbeing: lāʻau lapaʻau (ancestral medicinal plants), mana ʻai (food and nourishment), lomilomi (touch of aloha), and pilina (relationships to ʻohana, community, ʻāina, and spirituality). While Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo was formally established as an LLC in 2021, the work began in 2010 through lomilomi practice and expanded into lāʻau lapaʻau and Hawaiian birth work in 2014. Founder Pua O Eleili Pinto is a cultural health keeper, educator, researcher, and entrepreneur who holds a BA and MA in Hawaiian Studies. Her master's thesis was the first known graduate thesis dedicated to Hawaiian birthing, documenting ancestral understandings of birth, including the relationship between contraction pains, thunder, ʻaumakua and akua, and the use of traditional plant knowledge.
Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo reconnects families and communities with ancestral knowledge through hands-on education, community programming, lāʻau cultivation and preparation, birth and postpartum education, research, published resources, professional presentations, and relationships with ʻāina-based practitioners and farmers. The organization is primarily led by Pua O Eleili, with a growing network of Hawaiʻi-based artisans, mothers, farmers, educators, birth workers, and cultural practitioners who are contracted and engaged according to each project. Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo has maintained a longstanding mentorship and working relationship with Huliaupaʻa, a Hawaiian cultural resource management and educational nonprofit, since 2014 and formally partners with Huliaupaʻa as a fiscal sponsor. Huliaupaʻa's staff and Board of Directors are majority Hawaiian women, providing an important foundation of cultural mentorship, organizational accountability, and community connection.
Notable Accomplishments
2019 — Hawaiian Birth Research
Completed the first known MA thesis research focused specifically on Hawaiian birthing, documenting ancestral Hawaiian understandings of birth and examining the relationship between Hawaiian akua, medicinal plants, and the physiological experience of labor. This research has become a foundation for Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo's continued work in Hawaiian birth education and advocacy.
2021–Present — Hawaiian Birth Education & Professional Engagement
Became one of the first Hawaiian cultural health providers to present Hawaiian approaches to birth and traditional knowledge within a Hawaiʻi obstetrics and gynecology professional setting. Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo continues to bridge ancestral Hawaiian knowledge with contemporary health systems through professional presentations, education, research, and relationship-building with healthcare providers.
2023–2025 — Hawaiian Birth Advocacy & Public Education
Developed public education through social media and community outreach around Hawaiʻi legislation affecting midwives and the criminalization of traditional Hawaiian birthing practices. This work has helped make the history, knowledge, and contemporary realities of Hawaiian birth more visible to the broader community.
2024–2025 — ʻĀina, Food & Community Health
Distributed more than 300 pounds of ancestral Hawaiian greens, including lūʻau and palula, through partnerships with community farmers, WIC, and Mother Wit. This work combined food access with cultural education, including the development of four educational cookbooks and community food giveaways, reconnecting families with ancestral foods while supporting local growers.
2025 — Global Council of Indigenous Midwives Gathering
Hosted the Global Council of Indigenous Midwives (GCIM) Gathering from April 14–19, 2025, at Camp Palehua on Oʻahu. The gathering brought together approximately 60 participants representing 17 Indigenous nations. Participants were nourished primarily with locally sourced Oʻahu foods, began the gathering at the Hawaiʻi State Legislature, planted more than 100 coastal Hawaiian plants, planted and maintained approximately 50 native forest plants at Camp Palehua, and visited significant Hawaiian birthing and cultural sites including Kukaniloko. The gathering created an opportunity for Indigenous midwives from around the world to learn from one another while grounding the gathering in Hawaiian land, food, genealogy, and birth traditions.
ʻĀina-Based Community Work
A central part of Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo's work is maintaining long-term relationships with community organizations, farmers, and ʻāina-based sites. Since 2010, Pua has worked with farms and community sites across Oʻahu to share the stories and uses of ancestral food and medicine plants while also helping ensure that the plants themselves remain accessible. This includes hosting workdays, purchasing plants from local growers, expanding community gardens, and supporting one-on-one healing and educational spaces. Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo maintains regular relationships with core sites in Kailua, Kāneʻohe, Kapolei, and Waimānalo, while periodically collaborating with additional sites and communities throughout Hawaiʻi.
Our work has grown from a commitment to restoring practices that have been disrupted across generations and ensuring that Hawaiian knowledge remains living, accessible, and practiced within our communities. Notable accomplishments include developing and teaching Hawaiian cultural health and lāʻau lapaʻau education; producing and distributing ʻuhaloa-based lāʻau products in partnership with local farmers; developing an online Hawaiian birth education course and digital educational resources; securing philanthropic support to advance cultural health programming, research, and the development of a Hawaiian medicinal plant cookbook; and serving as a community and cultural leader in regional and international Indigenous knowledge gatherings. Through these efforts, Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo continues to build pathways for the transmission of ʻŌiwi knowledge between generations while supporting the health and wellbeing of Hawaiian families and communities.
Meaning of Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo. Ēwe is a birth term that is the umbilical cord of a infant it also means root and sprout. The dual meaning encapsulates how vital the relationship between humans and the environment is. ʻOiaʻiʻo means genuine and true. Reading it forward or backwards it will always read oiaio. Value systems embodied clearly. Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo to me is our genuine connections that provide generational health for both people and the enviroment. We have always strived to share ancestral knowledges of health in true and genuine ways taking timeless complex Hawaiian systems explained simply that empowers and is clear to people their importance and accessible in their own mana for themselves and loved ones.