Welcome to Nani Ola Productions!
Nani Ola 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 Nani Ola Productions; to strive for a beautiful life, one that is in balance with nature.
Nani Ola Productions is committed to serving New York City communities by offering: media production training and educational programs for teens and young adults; film events; interactive health workshops; cooking classes; and the production of informative and entertaining multimedia. All programs are directed at underserved neighborhoods that suffer growing disparities in food and media information and access. 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.
The current mission of Nani Ola Productions is to empower individuals and communities by using multimedia to educate New York City youth and adults on current food, health and media related issues in order to promote discussion and inspire action for adopting more conscious lifestyle choices.
The topics of media and food are analogous in that they both deal with matters of access, control, freedom and democracy, autonomy, equality, human rights and harmful environmental impacts. Examining both 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. We are currently facing environmental and social crisis worldwide and much of the crisis stems from the way we produce, process, distribute and consume food. Our future depends on our recognition that we are solely responsible for the preservation of our life sustaining planet, Earth.