Living on One Dollar` Four university students, took two cameras and spent their summer living on $1 a day in a rural Guatemalan village.

February 11, 2016

Living on One Dollar` Four university students, took two cameras and spent their summer living on $1 a day in a rural Guatemalan village.

We are a non-profit production and impact studio that uses immersive storytelling to create films that inspire action around pressing global issues.

http://livingonone.org/

Our journey began in 2010 when, as four university students, we took two cameras and spent our summer living on $1 a day in a rural Guatemalan village. Our academic and professional understanding of economic development didn’t prepare us for what we would go through. We battled intense hunger, parasites and the realization that there are no easy answers. But the strength of our neighbors and friends gave us hope that there are effective ways to make a difference.

While in Guatemala, we released short YouTube videos about the experience to help our friends learn alongside us in real time. The videos quickly received over 700,000 views, inspiring us to complete a feature-length film, Living on One Dollar, to mobilize others to help end extreme poverty. After graduating, we hit the road for four months in a renovated 1978 school bus to share the film around the U.S.. The tour events sold out in 20 major cities and culminated in an extended interview on CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose.

To our amazement, the film has since won Best Documentary at the Sonoma International Film Festival, and received endorsements from Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and the Director of the Hunger Games, Gary Ross.

Continuing our mission, in 2012 we launched Living on One, a production and social impact studio, that creates films and educational videos to raise awareness and inspire action around pressing global issues.