YouTube, Drew Barrymore, select 2010 "HungerBytes" winners

For the second year in a row, the United Nations World Food Program asked activists on YouTube to make videos raising awareness about world hunger in their "Hungerbytes" competition. And once again, a lot of very creative entries came in. CitizenTube served as a judge again this year (along with Drew Barrymore, actress and WFP Ambassador Against Hunger, Lance Vollard from Warner Bros. Pictures, and Nancy Roman from the WFP); you can see all the finalists here.

One clip used a food fight to show how we take our meals for granted in the U.S.; another showed that in the time it takes to cook a microwavable meal (60 seconds), 10 children die of hunger; and this clip used a variety of voices and original music to walk us through our daily food consumption and how it compares to those who are starving each day.

But it was filmmakers Carlos Antonio and Michel Sandoval of Mexico who took home the top prize, for their film "Dreams", which demonstrates different perspectives on hunger depending on where in the world you're from. One person's diet is another person's dinner:



Antonio and Sandoval will now travel to Guatemala with WFP, to raise awareness for hunger in that country. In the Under-18 category, 14-year old John Beck from Rome, Italy won some new film gear from the UN for his “Dinner is Served” video, in which a white-gloved waiter dishes up a meal comprised of a compact emergency food ration. The juxtaposition of gourmet restaurant service and an emergency food ration is striking:



You can learn more about the United Nations World Food Program, and how you can help, on their YouTube channel.