EF (Educational Foundations) Tours is a student travel program that allows students to experience a new perspective on the world, and Kamehameha Schools had been using this program for years to allow its students to travel all over the world enhancing their education.

“KS students gain ‘European experience’” is the title of an article dating back from the 1970’s explaining the itinerary and how they will be traveling to Denmark, Finland, Norway and Russia. Although then it wasn’t yet a part of the Ambassadors of Aloha ʻĀina, a club whose mission is “Retracing the footsteps of our Aliʻi”, it can be considered that this was the start of the idea of it. The article written by then Kā Mōʻi reporter, Nāʻālehu Anthony, expresses the concern for students to sign up quickly before the slots are all filled. Including a quote from the chaperone, history teacher Mr.Lott, “You must decide quickly.” It seems as if it was the same for the recent Ambassadors of Aloha ʻĀina trip.

48 students and chaperones accompanying them from the Ambassadors of Aloha ʻĀina went to the United Kingdom and Italy this past October. EF tours allowed them to experience once in a lifetime opportunities such as being able to come face to face with the Anglo-Franco proclamation, a document that recognized the independence and sovereignty of the Hawaiian nation by Great Britain and France.

“The trip to Europe was very surreal. To think that you were in the exact same place as our aliʻi and ancestors that came before us is a very mind boggling thing,” Kaizer Espiau, a junior who attended the recent Europe trip states. “This trip has taught me very important information about our culture as a whole and the impact a small island has on the entire world.”