This week, we had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Sharon Norton, Director of Development at the Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition. Link Media is collaborating with the Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition this year to raise awareness about global hunger and malnutrition through Revolution Hunger. Revolution Hunger is a unique campaign that harnesses the power of teens across the United States to take on the problems of hunger and malnutrition around the world.

Hi Sharon. Thanks for joining us to talk about your work. First and foremost, what is the mission of the Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition, and what type of work does it do?

Our mission is creating lasting solutions that enable nutritional well-being in children. Our work is focused on children under the age of five and particularly those under the age of two. The provision of proper nutrition to this difficult to reach and often overlooked age group can help prevent stunting, improve cognitive outcomes, and ensure more positive health consequences for life.

In terms of hunger and malnutrition, what are the major challenges happening globally?

Overall, the majority of our work is aimed at resolving hidden hunger. Hidden hunger is a chronic lack of vitamins and minerals that can lead to physical and cognitive afflictions. In Central America for example, there is a dire need for nutritional intervention to alleviate hidden hunger as evidenced by the average prevalence of 23.5% stunting regionally. Stunting is essentially where children do not grow to their potential in height and Guatemala and Honduras top the list with 54.5% and 30.1%, respectively, in stunted children under the age of 5. Moreover, anemia, iodine and/or vitamin deficiencies affect over 16 million young children and 5 million pregnant women in this region. This is a significant issue as those affected by micronutrient deficiency worldwide exceeds two billion. Dietary deficiencies are borne disproportionately by children, mothers, and those living in rural communities. Resolution of these deficiencies will result in improved health outcomes for children and mothers.

How did you find your way to the position you now hold? How do you feel personally connected to this cause?

I think it has been the combination of an open mind, a spirit of discovery and skills that had the potential for broad application. When I entered college, I was 100% sure I wanted to be a veterinarian, then I started taking nutrition classes and learned that I loved nutrition, ration formulation and working with large animals. That took me into an entirely different career, but my degree in nutrition has allowed me to work in a number of different nutrition related sectors. Today, at the Mathile Institute I am using my nutritional training to help resolve malnutrition in children. But I also get to apply other skills I picked up while working in the packaged goods sector such as technical communications and consumer understanding methodologies. My personal connection to my work stems from my belief in the "Golden Rule" -- treating others as we would wish to be treated. I believe in treating people with dignity and respect and, for children, I believe that includes their right to a healthy diet.

You have the amazing opportunity to learn about a lot of positive work happening in the field around this cause. What is one of the most inspiring stories you have come across recently?

I was incredibly inspired by an experience I had not long ago in El Salvador. We met with FUSAL, a private non-profit organization in El Salvador that channels the experience and social responsibility of a committed Salvadoran business family. This family has solidarity with the most vulnerable people in society and are dedicated to human development, which is why health and education are at the core of their non-profit organization's work. I had the opportunity to visit one of FUSAL's project sites in a rural community. The community workers were teaching the mothers about nutrition and health, demonstrating how to prepare more nutritious meals and ways to provide their babies stimulation to enhance cognitive development. I was so inspired by the sense of community, kindness and the care among these women and among those that were serving them. It was an example of the kind of humanity and action that we need to solve the problem of hunger in this world.

Another story that continually moves me the life and work of Dr. Norman Borlaug. This one, soft-spoken man, with humble, Midwestern roots, was able to change the world through his Green Revolution, an agricultural initiative, which increased crop yields so countries could feed their people.  He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to ending hunger. Norman Borlaug has been credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.  Knowing that one person can make that type of impact is personally inspiring.

What does "under-nutrition" mean to you? Where is this happening?

Many people may hear the word undernutrition and think this means not having enough food or calories.  While that is one form of undernutrition, hidden hunger that I described earlier is another and very prevalent form. But even in the developed world, we see undernutrition due to the inability to access nutritious food. While some of this is linked to poverty, many with the financial means and ability to access a healthy diet make poor food choices. They often do not consume enough of the foods they need to derive important nutrients needed for health. The bottom line is, undernutrition is a global epidemic and the first step in ending it is awareness of the issue and the causes.

Your organization has just launched a new initiative called "Revolution Hunger," what ignited your interest in an initiative that mobilizes teens?

I am really excited about this initiative and it was actually inspired by Norman Borlaug. He dedicated his life to fighting hunger around the world. His skill, passion and deep respect for communities in the developing world ignited a global movement that would feed billions worldwide. The spirit of Revolution Hunger was born out of his example and is a campaign that arms teens with information about hunger's causes and solutions and challenges them with calls to action to fight the issue. Everyone has a role and everyone can be a hunger fighter through Revolution Hunger.

What do you hope to see as a result of the work of your organization?

We hope that through our collaborative effort we will alleviate malnutrition and put an end, once and for all to the 25,000 daily deaths that result from hunger-related issues. We believe that capacity-building with initiatives like Revolution Hunger are part of the answer. We also are confident that our approach to establishing new nutritional innovations coupled with community awareness and education programs, relevant behavior change initiatives, and ongoing engagement of community leaders will produce scalable and sustainable solutions.

How can others get involved in what you do?

For teens go to revolutionhunger.org and learn what it takes to become a hunger fighter. Watch the video, take a personality quiz and begin the journey to face, fight and live the battle to fight hunger. Participate in activities to fight hunger in your local community and beyond. For adults, I would also suggest visiting revolutionhunger.org to not only learn more about hunger but also what you can do to become a teen advocate. If you are a teacher, we also have begun to develop case studies that can give students the opportunity to explore and tackle real issues in the classroom. I hope everyone will join the fight and join the revolution!

On our last couple days of programming for World Food Week, Link TV spoke with co-founder of FoodCorps, Curt Ellis. Want to get inspired and spread the word about taking real action in communities around food justice? Read this interview. And continue to visit our food page for "Hungry Planet" airtimes, to watch programs online, and to learn more about these critical issues.

Hello Curt, thanks for joining us. Could you tell us a little bit about FoodCorps and how your organization specifically works to fight hunger?

FoodCorps works with a network of young leaders around the country in a kind of Peace Corps for healthy school food. Our service members teach children about healthy food and where it comes from, build and tend school gardens that help kids to grow and cook healthy food themselves, and work with school food service staff and local farmers to bring high-quality food into school lunch. Taken together, these three things -- knowledge, engagement and access -- address two big problems at once: childhood hunger and childhood obesity. It sounds paradoxical, but those two problems are closely linked. Kids who don't have reliable access to healthy food don't get a balanced diet, and all too rarely get reliable access to healthy fruits and vegetables -- so food insecure populations are often the ones with the highest rates of both hunger and obesity. As we see it, school is the best place to start fixing both these problems: 32 million children eat roughly half of their calories 180 days of the year in school. In helping to make that food fresher and healthier, we're setting kids on a path out of hunger and into lifelong health.

Food Corps does a lot of work with youth. What do you think the importance of working with youth around this issue is?

We have a serious health crisis in this country, and it's directly related to the food we eat. Studies show that the relationships we build with food -- healthy or unhealthy -- start in childhood. Children who are eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, as children will grow up to be adults who eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. And, likewise, children who grow up being served fast food in their school cafeterias will feed their own families' fast food someday. If we help kids understand from an early age that healthy food tastes good, that it's fun to grow and prepare, that it makes you feel good, and that it doesn't have to be out of reach financially, we can put powerful and positive change into motion.

What would you say are the current root causes or main factors that contribute to hunger both within the United States and globally?

Unfortunately, much of the food that is seen as affordable in America -- fast food, processed food -- is also some of the least healthy. So we have a shocking number of people in our country who are simultaneously obese and malnourished. Until we have solved problems of access to fruits and vegetables, whole grains and high-quality protein -- both in terms of physical access and financial access -- we'll continue to have these problems of hunger and obesity.

As I see it, if that solution is going to start anywhere, it's going to start in our schools. My grandparents' generation made an important decision: that the children in our country should have lunch in school, so we can be sure they all have an opportunity to get at least one healthy meal a day. Now, with the addition of school breakfast and after-school snack, school food is even more important than it was a generation or two ago. But the food we're serving kids these days looks all too much like fast food, and too little like carrots. We need to change what's on the lunch tray and make sure the tools we're using to fight hunger -- like school lunch -- are really solving the problem they set out to fix.

What do you think are the most pertinent problems in the food industry today?

For a long time, the food industry -- and its consumers -- prioritized quantity over quality. I applaud the efforts to give all people access to an abundant food supply, but I think we took that ideal too far. It's hard to think of anything more important than food, yet we don't treat food, or farmers, with the respect they deserve. I think the food we produce and consume as a nation should have integrity. It should be grown and processed in an ecologically sustainable way, by farmers and workers who are compensated fairly, it should be safe and healthy for people to eat, and it should be accessible to all -- even the least fortunate members of our society. I think those are standards that are important to uphold for something as fundamental as the food we eat. And if we live out those ideals, hunger won't be a problem anymore. Diet-related disease won't be a problem anymore. We won't see Florida tomato growers getting brought to trial on charges of slavery in the fields. And the soil we depend on will continue producing high-quality food for eons to come.

What are the advantages of eating locally grown foods?

Locally grown foods are fresher, so in most cases they'll taste better and be more nutritious to boot. Vitamins are fragile, so vegetables that are trucked long distances can lose half their nutrient content! Also, sourcing locally grown food keeps a huge amount of money in the local economy, and the reduction in transportation reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on oil. In some ways, though, I think the most important thing that comes from eating locally is the sense that food comes from somewhere. That it's grown by someone. And that's a reminder that those people and places matter.

You've also co-created a few documentaries. Can you give our readers a synopsis of those films and how they relate to food?

Before joining the effort to start FoodCorps, I got to collaborate on a few films that explored the food world. I worked with Ian Cheney and Aaron Woolf on a documentary called King Corn, which was about a year we spent in Iowa growing an acre of corn (well, an acre of corn syrup and corn-fed fast-food meat, as it turned out). I worked with those two again on a follow-up to King Corn called Big River, which explored the ecological consequences of modern agriculture. And then I helped Ian make a film about the wacky and amazing people who are bringing farming into urban places. That film was called Truck Farm, and it starts with a project we did planting a vegetable garden in the back of an '86 Dodge Pickup. You can find the first couple films on Netflix, and the third on Amazon.

How can people help alleviate hunger both on an individual and societal level?

That's a big question, and if it could be answered in a paragraph I think someone would have done so already. But I'll highlight a few things. On the individual level, I think it's important that we learn -- and help others learn -- how to grow and cook healthy, affordable food. During World War II, home gardeners were producing more than half of America's food. There's no reason we shouldn't be planting our window boxes and truck beds and vacant lots in healthy, high-quality, incredibly affordable food. On the societal level, we have some powerful building blocks for creating a healthy food environment for all. The national school lunch program is a powerful place to start. If we use that existing program as a way to make sure all children in America grow up having regular access to real, healthy food, we'll go a long way toward solving hunger in America.

What role does independent media play in raising awareness about these issues?

The mainstream media has really embraced food as an important issue in the last decade, and that's been great to see. Unfortunately, before that, I think they were missing much of the story, and it was independent outlets that were the first to highlight the way that food shapes our environment, our health and our sense of justice and equality.

What changes do you hope to see in the next 50 years?

Most importantly, I'd like to see us reverse the present statistic that this generation of children is the first that is likely to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. In fifty years I hope we have healthier children: children who feel connected to their food and have an enduring and healthy relationship with it.

I hope we can come together as a nation around the simple belief that food is important. That it's important enough that no child should go hungry. That it's important enough that it should be produced responsibly, sustainably, and ethically. That it should be available to all. If we can do that, I'll feel pretty good about our ability to solve some of the other tough problems we're facing as a society.

How can someone get involved in your organization or work?

For young leaders, the best way to get involved is to apply to become a service member in FoodCorps; applications for next year's class will be available this winter. For everyone else, if you support FoodCorps with a financial contribution, no matter how small, you can help us meet our goal of expanding our program into all 50 states by 2020. With your help, we can make sure more than a million kids are eating healthy, high-quality school lunch every day.

One Kenyan’s Dream, Building A Future for Many: Film Contest Grand-Prize-Winner Aaron Kisner speaks on his film’s inspirational leader

Vision. It’s what we at Link TV’s ViewChange.org hoped to showcase in our Online Film Contest— the vision to raise awareness, inspire action, and accelerate the worldwide movement to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Launched in April, 2010, we received 136 powerful entries—in the form of documentary, short drama, music video, and animation—by September. Then the judging began: votes were cast by viewers like you, and our panel of celebrity judges chose their top picks. In November, the winners were announced, and all contest films were streamed on ViewChange.org.

Vision. It’s what drove Kakenya Ntaiya, an unbelievably courageous woman from the Maasai Village in Kenya, to defy all odds and become the first woman in her village to leave Africa to obtain a college education in America. The revolutionary vision to change the lives of Maasai girls compelled Kakenya to pursue a dream of teaching.  She has just completed a doctorate in education from the University of Pittsburgh and is now planning to fulfill the promise she made to her village when she left—the promise to give back. Kakenya started an academy for underprivileged girls in her village in 2009, which is growing every year thanks to her advocacy and outside support.

What a story! We were sure blown away. It’s what inspired filmmaker Aaron Kisner to create the grand-prize-winning-entry Vital Voices: Kakenya showcasing this envisioned Kenyan’s story, dream and action. For his incredible video, Link TV presented Kisner with an award of $25,000! He then proceeded to blow us away yet again—choosing to give away all the money to fund a dorm for Kakenya’s academy for girls.

Be the change you hope to inspire. There’s no better example of it than right here. Kakenya set an example in her community by giving back through the education of others. Kisner is setting an example in our community to give back through charity and support of those working toward a better life. In an article for the Huffington Post, Kisner writes about what inspired him to make the film:

“In what Kakenya is doing, I see a woman who is taking care of the world, and it makes me feel like things can get better. Most importantly, it reminds me that it's women like Kakenya who lead change. From within.

"The stakes are high. The course towards a more equitable life for girls has been mapped, but the outcome is not guaranteed. This school and its students must succeed. Many are watching from both sides of an ideological divide. I want them all to know that I stand with Kakenya. As do hundreds of thousands of supporters who have heard her story and joined in the effort to spread it.

"As a director, I don't think I have a right to tell other people how they should live their lives, but my work can still play a part in positive social change.”

Of the six film contest categories, Vital Voices: Kakenya won the category “Overcoming Conflict.” Having come from a culture that is oppressive toward women, Kakenya has struggled from a young age against the expectations required of her as she ascends womanhood. Kisner describes her struggles with the humiliating ritual of female genital cutting:

“At puberty, every Maasai girl endures an excruciating circumcision, and at that point, she is available for marriage. No anesthetic is used, and any girl who remains 'uncut' is considered unclean; a disgrace to her family. So, Kakenya bargained with the only thing she had. She confronted her father and threatened to run away. She would remain uncut and bring him shame unless he agreed to let her finish school."

Because of her experiences, Kakenya has become an advocate against sexist practices in the Kenyan community. Beyond the standard academic subjects, she includes a health curriculum educating girls on genital circumcision, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS awareness and negotiating power in future sexual relationships. Other educational components include Leadership Training and Culture Preservation. The Kakenya Center for Excellence is the first primary girls’ school in the region, and has a goal of enrolling 150 students in grades four to eight.

As an independent director based in New York, Kisner works with non-profits to tell their stories in a compelling, accessible way. He has created a series of short films in collaboration with Vital Voices Global Partnership, ExxonMobil Foundation, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Kisner made this film in collaboration with the Vital Voices Global Partnership, a non-profit organizations that invests in women leaders, offering training, mentorship, connections, and opportunities to bring their stories to the world stage.

For Kakenya’s entire story, check out Vital Voices: Kakenya:

Read Aaron Kisner's complete Huffington Post article.

The first episode of the BBC/OU series Chinese School premieres today, November 24, on Link TV at 7:30PM Eastern/4:30PM Pacific!

Continuing in the vein of African School and Indian School, Chinese School follows the lives of families, teachers, and children in the small rural town of Anhui over the course of an academic year. The individual stories of hardship, joy, and success create an extraordinary portrait not only of the children, but of a nation in the midst of enormous change. Visit the official website of Anhui to learn more about the region.

This week's episode, The Year of the Golden Pig, follows headmistress Mrs. Zhang from Ping Min Primary School, as she heads deep into the Anhui mountains in order to recruit new children to start on their long march through the Chinese education system.  As a charitable foundation, her school is able to present an opportunity to some of the Province's most disadvantaged children, and give them the chance of a better life.  For these very poor children, a good education is their best way out of poverty.

Watch a clip from the premiere episode:

Earlier this year Link TV's Know the News project joined with the Poynter Institute's NewsU.org to bring our unique video editing tool to more classrooms. The online course, called Video News Editing: The Remixer Game, allows students to learn about media spin by comparing and editing new stories from broadcasters worldwide.

The start of the school year has brought many new schools and organizations to the Know the News remixer thanks to the partnership.

Here's a list of schools and orgs now using Know the News, which is funded by the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation:

Check out the Remixer Game at NewsU.org. For more information on the tools visit Know the News.