The digital universe for local Catholic young adults just got a little bit fresher.
A new website, newsletter and app launched last month aims to provide young adult faithful with tons of content to help them connect to parishes, contribute to their communities and cultivate their faith.
Diocesan young adult ministry coordinator Makana Aiona and Our Lady of Good Counsel Church parishioner Gabby Munoz created the vibrant web hub called “HICatholic” at http://hicatholic.weebly.com for these resources.
Aiona gleaned ideas for better communication and evangelization at the National Young Adult Ministry Summit in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. The HICatholic site, he explained, takes cues from digital design and content for young adults put out by the archdioceses of New York, Kansas City, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
Aiona found that young adult ministry leaders in these Mainland dioceses crafted offshoot pages from their official diocesan websites. This allowed for diocesan information to be repackaged with slick graphics and mobile-friendly features a younger generation of Catholics craves.
“A big part of a website is design,” Aiona said. “The way it’s designed determines the way it communicates and more importantly who it communicates to. A lot of newer websites, they’re very huge on imagery and very low on text.”
He explained that HICatholic runs “parallel” to the Diocese of Honolulu website, www.catholichawaii.org. It pulls together the event listings, young adult ministry directory and resources noted on the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry section of the diocesan website, and adds social media tidbits such as witty Catholic memes and Instagram-worthy spiritual quotes.
The HICatholic website also has a blog called “My View,” which features candid reflections on topics young adults can relate to. There’s a “Talk Story” forum page as well that Aiona hopes more young adults will join and share openly any thoughts they have about the faith.
Tied with the launch of the HICatholic website was a newsletter called “The Update.” Each month, this newsletter posts about noteworthy church happenings in Hawaii and elsewhere.
“The Update,” written specifically for young adults, is “personable, closer to like a text telling you like, ‘hey, check this out,’” Aiona said.
There’s an app for that, too. The HICatholic digital resources can all be tapped by downloading a single app for your tablet or smart phone. Instructions on how to get the app can be found at http://bit.ly/1LFZZpD.
The digital projects came together this summer with the help of Gabby Munoz, who volunteered her time as an “intern.” The Georgetown University student and Mililani High grad, who writes for her college’s pro-life blog, hopes “people use these platforms and grow deeper in their faith.”
“I also hope it connects young adults,” Munoz said. “We can fall through the cracks — either we’re crazy busy or there isn’t a strong young adult community at the nearby parish. This is something in a place where young adults are comfortable (online, on their phones), so I hope that just helps our community grow.”
Aiona is seeking other web-savvy folks to help update the HICatholic digital resources regularly.
In addition to the new website, newsletter and app, he hopes in the future to bring to each parish and vicariate more HICatholic “tools” and workshops. Connecting online, he said, is just a small step in establishing more fruitful parish and community ministries with young adults.
“I realized that we need to up our communication game,” Aiona said. “That’s a gigantic task.”
