NOW PLAYING ON CURRENT TV!
HEAC Where Do I Get my 5? video

Forget the South Beach Diet! A dose of The South Central Diet is just what the doctor (and public health advocates) ordered.

Current TV is now broadcasting a retooled version of Meet Me at Third & Fairfax, from the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) Where Do I Get My 5? DVD. Renamed The South Central Diet, the video follows HEAC student Lae Schmidt's trek across the food desert of South Los Angeles in search of healthy food. Current TV is broadcasting the video on its cable tv channel as well as on their website.

Let's keep it in rotation and keep the important issue of healthy food access in the public eye. WATCH THE VIDEO NOW and VOTE A THUMBS UP. Comments in support of the work are also most welcome.

HEAC Market Makeovers
GREENING THE FOOD DESERT - ONE CORNER STORE AT A TIME

This summer, Public Matters completed its second summer program with the Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) Youth Ambassadors at The Accelerated School in South Los Angeles. Building on last year's transformation of Coronado Market, this year's work focuses on the creation of an online Market Makeover Toolkit, using as case studies the transformation of two additional markets, Los Compadres and El Azteca, each located across the street from The Accelerated School.

Public Matters' collaboration with HEAC youth on the Market Makeover Toolkit continues to integrate youth media and civic engagement in innovative and unexpected ways to achieve HEAC's broader aims: increasing South L.A.'s healthy food options, leadership development, and community building.

A far cry from conventional documentary and youth media projects, the collaboration yielded some truly ingenious material, with video production divided into three "channels": N3 (Neighborhood Network News), YUMTV and MMTV (Market Makeover TV). N3 offers "media fixes" to counteract widely held but often inaccurate perceptions about South Los Angeles; it provides historical, political and socio-economic contexts for how the area came to be a food desert. YUMTV offers a different kind of food for thought in the form of a reality show competition that challenges contestants to prepare a healthy meal for a family of four, using ingredients from a local corner store with a budget of $10; it's Iron Chef meets Amazing Race, with a little Jeopardy thrown in. MMTV chronicles the market makeover process, step-by-step, and offers insight into the business of running a corner store through profiles of the stores, storeowners and customers.

More to come soon. Stay Tuned.

Out in the world:
Where Do I Get My FIVE? SCREENINGS + PANELS

Public Matters' work with the HEAC Youth Ambassadors continues to bring attention to issues of healthy food access, demonstrating how youth-driven media and youth leadership can effectively bring change to communities.

September 18, 2008: YOUTH ISSUES 2008: TRANSFORMING SERVICES, TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES, ADOLESCENT HEALTH CONFERENCE, The California Endowment, Los Angeles, CA

Through October 25, 2008: FOOD FIGHT: YOUTH ADVOCATES TRANSFORM LOCAL FOOD ENVIRONMENTS, Big Sur Educational Gallery of The California Endowment, Los Angeles, CA

October 31, 2008 - January 11, 2009: THE GATHERERS: GREENING OUR URBAN SPHERES, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA

Launching PDub Productions

Just in time for the start of the academic school year, Public Matters and Pilipino Workers Center (PWC) have launched PDub Productions, a youth media and civic engagement program in Los Angeles' Historic Filipinotown, in collaboration with UCLA partners Hypercities and ReMap LA.

Public Matters will work with immigrant youth from local high schools to explore, produce and publicly display media-based content about Historic Filipinotown's history, culture and significance. Through PDub Productions, youth participants will become Historic Filipinotown Neighborhood Experts, tapping into the expertise of UCLA professors and community stakeholders alike. PWC youth will also work with UCLA students, who will provide valuable research assistance about the neighborhood as well as the Filipino immigrant and Filipino American community in Los Angeles.

In spring of 2009, a Tactical Sound Garden will incorporate the work of PDub Productions youth in a locative media tour of Historic Filipinotown's significant sites. Ultimately, the work created through PDub Productions will culminate in a street-level multimedia installation that will be part of PWC's new building.

Funding for PDub Productions provided in part by The MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Award, The Stuart Foundation and The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund.