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Michele Okimura

Resources - Hawai'i Names Michele Okimura and the Explicit Movement Team Outstanding Advocate for Children and Youth

Michele Okimura, speaker, author, and coach

By Michele Okimura · June 17, 2026

On the first Sunday of October 2023, on the lawn of the Hawai'i State Capitol, Governor Josh Green stood with Michele Okimura and her Explicit Movement team and named them Outstanding Advocate for Children and Youth of Hawai'i. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi stood with them too. The recognition is given each year through Hawai'i Children and Youth Day, the statewide celebration that honors people whose work for the keiki and 'ōpio of Hawai'i has carried real weight.

For Michele, that day was not the beginning. It was a quieter thing. It was the state naming a calling she had been walking out for more than thirty years.

A calling that started in a classroom

Long before any board, any pulpit, any conference stage, Michele was a teacher. She grew up in Kaimukī, graduated from Kalani High School, and went to the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa for her education degree. For seventeen years, she taught elementary public school in Hawai'i. The keiki of this state were her work day in and day out, and they have stayed her work in every season since.

In 1997, Rob Okimura and Michele helped plant the Honolulu church now called Lifespring Church (originally Hope Chapel LifeSpring), where Rob served as Senior Pastor. Michele has served on staff there ever since, overseeing the Children's and Youth Ministries and continuing today as a part-time pastor alongside lead pastors Sean and Hitomi Nakamoto. The teacher's heart did not retire when the pastor's calling arrived; it deepened.

From classroom to movement

Out of that long obedience came Explicit Movement, the ministry Michele founded and now directs under the Releasing Generations nonprofit umbrella. Explicit Movement exists because too many parents, pastors, and youth leaders do not know how to talk to young people about sexuality, identity, healing from abuse, and healthy relationships. Michele's work has been to walk alongside the adults who love young people and to give them the language, the tools, and the courage to have the conversations that change a young person's life.

The flagship is The Brave Series, a four-volume teen leadership curriculum that comes in three configurations: Brave & Beautiful for girls, Brave & Bold for boys, and Brave Together for co-ed classrooms with more than eighty lessons. The curriculum is now in classrooms, churches, and homes around the world. It builds confidence, emotional health, and leadership in young people, and it equips them to recognize and resist exploitation. The Brave Series is the work the state of Hawai'i pointed to when it named the Explicit Movement team Outstanding Advocate.

What the recognition honors

Hawai'i Children and Youth Day is one of the oldest statewide observances of its kind in the United States. Hawai'i was among the first states to establish, by statute, an annual day that celebrates children and youth and recognizes the adults whose advocacy makes a measurable difference in their lives. The Outstanding Advocate award honors those who, in the words of the program, "have demonstrated notable achievements in advocating for children and youth during the past year."

In 2023, that meant Michele and her team. The presentation took place at the Aloha Stage on the State Capitol grounds, with Governor Josh Green and Mayor Rick Blangiardi delivering the recognition in person.

Michele, characteristically, points to the team. "It was not just me up there," she has said in conversation. "It was Explicit Movement. It was our youth leaders. It was the parents and pastors who have been doing this work alongside us for years." The recognition belongs to the movement, with Michele as the founder, director, and the face Hawai'i knows.

Why this matters now

Recognition is a strange thing for someone whose work has always been the work itself. It does not change the work. It does, however, do something quieter and worth naming. It tells the next group of kids that the state of Hawai'i sees what their adults are building. It tells the next set of pastors that this kind of ministry counts as advocacy. It tells the next family considering whether to bring The Brave Series into their home that the conversation Michele is inviting them into has been vetted, walked, and honored at the highest level of Hawai'i's civic life.

Michele also leads Releasing Generations, the parent nonprofit that holds Explicit Movement, Kingdom Families, and ReThink Creativity together under one mission. She runs Michele Okimura Consulting LLC, where she offers workshops and retreats. Her Dream Big Journal curriculum is used in schools, churches, and homes across the country. She has authored a book, Dancing with Father, that has been described as a poem of healing for women who are ready to be loved by God the Father.

And there is the work coming. Michele is writing again. Two new books, Brave Purpose (a secular edition) and Brave Purpose with God (a faith edition), are in production through Dream Big Publish and Ohana Style Publishing, scheduled for 2027. They will sit beside the curriculum, the conferences, and the coaching as the next room in a house Michele has been building for decades.

What the state named

In the end, the 2023 recognition named what was already true. Michele Okimura has spent more than thirty years showing up for the keiki and 'ōpio of Hawai'i. She has done it as a teacher, as a pastor, as a curriculum writer, as a conference leader, as a coach, as an author, and as the wife and mother of a family that has always been part of the work. The Outstanding Advocate award is one moment in a long story. It is also a story worth telling on its own.

Mahalo to Governor Green, to Mayor Blangiardi, to Hawai'i Children and Youth Day, and to every parent, pastor, teacher, and youth leader who has stood with the Explicit Movement team across the years. The work continues.

Sources

Draft prepared 2026-06-17. Pending Michele review before publish. Voice corpus status: [LOW] confidence on first-person Michele prose at the time of drafting; this post is written third-person to keep the voice gate safe. Once Michele approves, a first-person companion version can be drafted for the email send. No pricing or financial information appears in this article.

Work with Michele.

Coaching through the Brave Purpose Author Method, or a speaking date. Join the waitlist and Michele will reach out personally.

Based in
Honolulu, HI