FLY PROJECT TV

email: [email protected] twitter: @FlyProjectTV #flyprojectTV

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Rafa, "Daily Practice”

In his first chapter video, Rafa, a professional trumpet player, shares what keeps him practicing the trumpet everyday, the struggle and thrill of playing, and how his enthusiasm for the subject has carried him as he acquires this body of musical knowledge.

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Alta, Creative Designer

Alta shares how her personal experience dealing with a health crisis opened up an opportunity for her to go deeper and explore her creative side after an earlier career in communications and brand marketing.

While getting her Master of Arts in Visual Communications with a focus on Social Responsibility, Alta began to build her portfolio and work for herself. In this next track, she outlines her pros and cons of working for yourself, including the creative freedom and "unknowing" that comes with it.

Alta shares the value of having cultural role models, her memory of seeing an Asian fly girl on "In Living Color," and speaks about moving through periods of self-doubt and creative blocks.

I interviewed Alta at her apartment in San Francisco in May of 2011. Especially at that time when I was really searching, I really looked up to Alta as a professional and cultural role model, so I’m very grateful I had a chance to talk to her about that. Alta is still designing and now based in New York.

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Abel, "First-Generation American Kids”

In this first chapter video, Abel, who ran media communications for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, describes growing up as a first-generation Ethiopian-American kid in Oakland, California.

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Malila, Nutrition Educator for Kids, Alameda County

In track two above, Malila highlights the nutrition challenges she was seeing in the classroom, particularly the impact on learning, focus, and behavior. She also shares a project she worked on in Philly where she worked with high school students locally to address food deserts in their own neighborhood.

In the video above, Malila describes the rewarding experience of teaching cooking lessons to kids, how she learned through years of shadowing, how long it took to get her nutrition job she wanted, what attracted her to the Bay, how early experiences with activism influenced her going into nutrition, and how she measures her success.

Malila went on to get a Masters degree in college and career counseling, researched and wrote her thesis on retaining low income and first-generation students in higher education, and now works to build career pathways at K-12 school sites for the Alameda County Office of Education.

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Haleh Zandi, co-founder of Planting Justice

As Haleh began thinking about her own power and "sphere of influence," she began to focus locally. She started drawing historical connections between the US culture of militarism and how chemicals from bombs entered our food system after World War II. 

She began exploring the local food justice movement and ways people resist this “warfare on our bodies” by growing their own food and sharing it in their local community.

In this second track, Haleh shares how she started learning through hands-on experience on a farm and thinking about applying what she learned in the city.

In track three, she ties in her background in grassroots organizing and building power locally, and by growing food locally and educating others how to grow food locally, she could create a solution that would help alleviate a dependency on oil.

In track four, Haleh recounts how she and Gavin got started in the early days of Planting Justice by offering their landscaping and permaculture design skills, and were able to provide their services to members in their community who couldn't afford it.

In track five, Haleh outlines how she and Gavin invited a large board of directors, applied to set up their non-profit, and were able to successfully provide a living wage for landscaping and grow.

Haleh Zandi is the co-founder and Director of Education at Planting Justice. Since interviewing Haleh back in 2011, she's now become a mama to Azadeh and Ayla.

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Here are a few more peers I interviewed for the fly project: Malila a nutrition educator, Haleh from Planting Justice, Abel a communicator who ran media for Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Rafa a trumpet player, Dominic a visual artist aka DJ Treat-U-Nice, Alta a designer, Steven a musician and writer, Aida a community leader, and Erin a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer. 

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Photos: Fly Project interviews, Los Angeles & San Francisco Bay Area

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Here is the 10 minute rough cut of the FLY PROJECT, featuring Becky, a pastry chef at Facebook, and Danielle, Co-Founder of GenJuice. It was selected by the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) to appear in BAVC’s 4×10 workshop on May 17th.

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What is the FLY PROJECT?

FLY PROJECT TV is a video + multimedia project focused primarily on my peers in the Bay Area (and also LA) who are extremely passionate, motivated and driven. They are passionate about a variety of different fields, from food to art to startups to social justice to djing to graphic design, and they are going for it.

I’m exploring what it takes to actually pursue a life (and a living) doing what you really enjoy doing, what you love and get excited about, and how to make it happen, and make it work. I am talking to my peers around me to help me answer a few questions about how to do this (how they are doing it), and documenting them using my camera.

If you are curious about the project or want to contribute your own story to the project, please write to [email protected]. 

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