Community Visions
Community Visions teaches documentary video-making skills to members of community organizations in Philadelphia, Chester and Camden (NJ). Community Visions is a part of Scribe's mission to explore, develop and advance the use of video, film, audio and interactive technology as artistic tools and as tools for progressive social change.
Since 1990, Scribe Video Center has guided over 75 community and activist organizations through the production of mini-documentaries and neighborhood portraits that help communities address important social and political issues. The program is a powerful way to document community concerns, celebrate cultural diversity, and comment on the human condition. We work with local non-profit groups whose members have important stories to tell but limited access to the means of making videos. We invite applications from all groups, including people of color, young people, senior citizens, immigrants, the disabled and poor people. The selected groups — usually four each year — make videos about things that are important to their constituents. In recent years, groups have made oral histories, documented neighborhood problems, or created neighborhood portraits. The project is free to the group. Scribe provides the instruction, technical assistance, equipment, tape and other things that go into the production of a five- to fifteen-minute video. When the video is complete, we host a premiere screening and help the groups plan how they will use their videos.
Scribe provides all the necessary technical assistance to produce your videotape. Groups must have a strong idea and committed individuals to see the project to completion. This program is offered free of charge to organizations in Philadelphia, Chester and Camden. All instruction, equipment and technical services are provided by Scribe. Participating groups will acquire new skills while creating a video that will help them reach their constituency in new ways — through video.
Apply To Community Visions
The deadline for Community Visions 2007 has passed, but information about the application process is available online. And we encourage interested groups to contact us. Call 215 222 4201 or email us at inquiry [at] scribe [dot] org.
Watch a scene from Tina Morton's film Philadelphia's Scribe to see Community Visions in action.
Recent Community Visions Projects
Five most recent Community Visions Projects premiered on Thursday, May 10, 2007.
Glance Into the Life
By the COLOURS Youth Group: Acres of Change?
This video illuminates the life and circumstance of LGBTQ youth of color, ages 16-22, through the exploration of their personal stories. It also dispels myths and provides much needed community resources. COLOURS's mission is to garner the strengths and talents of sexual minority people of color: male, female, transgender, African American, Latino, Asian American to construct an affirming and caring community.
Literacy at Shaw
By the Shaw Middle School
Shaw Middle School, a city public school, created a video to about their commitment to incorporating literacy education into all classes and activities.
To Invite the World to Come and Learn Art
By the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial
The Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial is the oldest and largest tuition fee community-based arts school in the nation. Present and former students collaborated to create a documentary about the importance of art making.
Under the Baobab Tree
By the Pan-African Studies Community Education Program (PASCEP)
PASCEP is a 32-year-old, all volunteer education and outreach program that was created out of struggles in 1970s to make Temple University more responsive to the African American community in North Philadelphia where the University is based. Their video is a celebration of the history and the influence of this institution has had and all the incredible artists and educators who have come through PASCEP's doors.
West Park: A Community in Transition
By West Park Cultural and Opportunity Center
The history of this neighborhood bordering the west side of Fairmount Park is told by longtime community members as they reminisce and discuss the positibe and negative impact of the change taking place in their community as a result of rapid development.
Community Visions is made possible by support from Bread and Roses Community Fund, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Union Benevolent Association and Ann Greene.