Charter School Commissioner Camvel

Donna Ann Kameha’iku Camvel is the Education Systems Specialist for Ka Lama Education Academy, one of ten programs under the Institute for Native Pacific Education & Culture or INPEACE. Her family, the Līhuʻe, Kahanu, Pāoa, Kea, Lono ʻohana are kupaʻāina from the ʻili of ʻIolekaʻa in the Heʻeʻia Ahupuaʻa and Kamehaʻiku has served the Heʻeʻia community for the last thirty-five years.

Co-founding the Ahupuaʻa Restoration Council of Heʻeʻia in 1999 as a successful grassroots community platform which led to the restorative efforts taking place in the Heʻeʻia ahupuaʻa today, she is well aquainted with community service. She attended the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for her undergraduate degree in Womenʻs Studies and Hawaiian Studies, continuing on to earn a M.A. in Hawaiian Studies and in 2020, successfully defended her dissertation, “Hoʻoulu ʻĀina: Restoration in the Heʻeʻia Ahupuaʻa, to earn her doctoral degree. For twenty-five years she has taught Hawaiian Studies at Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, the last six years at Windward Community College. As a kumu, cultural practitioner and matriarch of her ‘ohana, Kameha’iku has served and continues to serve her community with place-based mālama and aloha ʻāina educational & cultural opportunities at her ʻohana’s kuleana in ʻIolekaʻa.