Trigger-happymedia

Fly on the Wall follows artist Marna Chester as she speaks with shop owners in Brooklyn neighborhoods where there is less access to healthy food. Her mission: to hang a poster she designed that promotes healthy eating. Marna’s local, grassroots effort sparks conversations that expose deeply-rooted problems within the larger food system.

Today is International Women’s Day, a great moment to be talking about human trafficking. Check out the NYU Wagner Series Anti-Trafficking Week happening now in NYC:

There are currently 27 million people who are trafficked in the world. Men, women and children are victimized and exploited for labor and the commercial sex industry. Human trafficking is not a problem limited to other parts of the world. It happens in the United States. It happens here in New York City.

This week of events raises awareness of all aspects of human trafficking in all its forms including international, domestic, local, sex, child and labor. The goal is to expose this issue to the Wagner and NYU community, discuss implications of past and current policy decisions, and identify ways to fight modern day slavery.

Monday, Mar. 8, 2010, 6:00pm-8:00pm
Film Screening: Lilya 4-Ever
The Puck Building, Jersey Conference Room, 3rd Fl.

Tuesday, Mar. 9, 2010, 4:00pm-5:00pm
IPSA Reading & Discussion Group: Labor Trafficking
The Puck Building, Jersey Conference Room, 3rd Fl.

Tuesday, Mar. 9, 2010, 5:30pm-7:30pm
An Exhibition: Building Knowledge to Take Action
The Puck Building, The Rudin Family Forum for Civic Dialogue, 2nd Fl.
*Representatives from local and national anti-trafficking organizations speak at 6:30pm

Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010, 12:30pm-2:00pm
Trafficking 101: Commercial Sexual Exploitation
The Puck Building, Jersey Conference Room, 3rd Fl.

Thursday, March 11, 2010, 11:30-12:30 pm
Children and Global Trafficking: a brownbag with UNICEF and SOS Kinderhof International
The Puck Building, Mulberry Conference Room, 3rd Fl.
Speakers: Susu Thatun, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Migration and Trafficking and Jenessa Bryan, SOS Kinderhof International

Please RSVP here: http://wagner.nyu.edu/events

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Trigger: NYU Public Events

Thanks so much to everyone who came out for the Hungry Filmmakers’ screening of Fly on the Wall. For their support of the film, I would especially like to thank Aaron Lubarsky, Suzanne Hillinger, and the amazing Brooklynites who invited Marna and my camera into their businesses.

After the screening, I chatted with two teachers who work in Brooklyn public schools. One told me that her students call baby carrots “teacher food”; they see their teachers bringing this healthy snack to work with them, but otherwise they are like a foreign object in the neighborhood where they live. The other spoke of a child so malnourished from only eating processed foods that his growth was severely stunted.

The problem of food access and imbalance in our communities, in New York City and beyond, is serious and urgently needs to be addressed.

My hope is that Marna’s project can be used as a tool to draw more attention to the issue and to elicit change…stay tuned.

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Trigger: Hungry Filmmakers