Welcome to Naniola Productions!
Naniola in the Hawaiian language means "beautiful life". Founder and Executive Director Martha Ma chose this name to represent the ultimate goal of all projects and programs offered by Naniola Productions; to strive for a beautiful life, one that is in balance with nature.
The current mission of Naniola Productions is to empower individuals and communities with knowledge, information and resources. We are dedicated to using multimedia to educate and empower NYC youth and adults on current food, health and media related issues in order to promote discussion and inspire action for adopting more thoughtful and wholesome lifestyle choices. We promote clean, healthy and sustainable agriculture, localization, whole food cooking and consumption, greening initiatives, energy and natural resource conservation, public access to media, conscious consuming and community building. Naniola Productions is committed to serving the New York City community by offering educational programs for teens and young adults, film events, interactive health workshops, cooking classes and the production of informative and entertaining media.
Why food? Naturalist John Muir once said "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." Well, that anything can be applied to food. Food is our intimate connection with everything in the universe because we consume it, it becomes us.
Tragically, the pleasurable and daily necessity of eating has become a major cause of environmental degradation and social crisis worldwide. We must begin to connect our food choices to the bigger picture and begin to ask: Where does food come from? How is it produced and by whom? What are the environmental and social impacts of my food consumption and needs? How does this affect me? Our future depends on our recognizing the connection between our personal choices and how it impacts every single thing around us. The responsibility of preserving our life sustaining planet, Earth lies within each one of us. Don't look around, I'm talking to you!
Understanding the powerful impact of media on our culture, beliefs, information, and the decisions we make in our daily lives, is essential to freeing ourselves from the grips of media influence. We can then use media's power and reach to share information and to express the concerns that truly matter to us. Examining both food and media issues are equally crucial in maintaining a true democracy where we, the public have the right to make informed decisions about how we choose to relate with nature. With knowledge comes action. Action can only take the place of inaction when there is a shift in perception followed by a shift in behavior, and only then can we create change!