PEACE AMBASSADOR | HAWAI’I

Kiana Goin is based in Honolulu, Hawai’i, where she is currently a 1L law student at the University of Hawai’i’s William S. Richardson School of Law. She is an organizer of cross-cultural, interfaith community support for small businesses in Occupied Palestine, West Bank. She builds dialogue across interfaith, indigenous, and activist communities from West Asia to the Pacific. She has dedicated her higher education to understanding policy regarding international human rights and localized indigenous rights in Palestine and Hawai’i. She is passionate about supporting those who stand “in the back of the line” socioeconomically, and policy that unjustly affects Native Hawaiian and Palestinian communities.

Kiana holds a B.S. in Political Science from Dallas Baptist University and an M.A. in Non-Violent Peace and Justice, with an emphasis on Palestine, peacebuilding, and public theology, from St. Stephen’s University in New Brunswick, Canada. In 2019, she studied abroad in Amman, Jordan, through the Middle Eastern Studies Program, where she focused on the academically-known “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” the Occupation of Palestine, and interfaith dialogue. In 2024, she completed a residency at Bethlehem Bible College through the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice. She was the first graduate of the joint master’s program with Bethlehem Bible College and the Jim Forest Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice in 2025.

Kiana is inspired by Queen Liliʻuokalani – the illegally overthrown last sovereign monarch of the Kingdom of Hawai’i – whose motto was “E ‘onipa‘a i ka ‘imi na‘auao” (Be steadfast in the seeking of knowledge). In the coming years, she hopes to become no‘eau (skilled, adept) in kūpale (defense, to strongly advocate) for those in need of allyship.