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Emiko Tonooka, a Nisei (second generation) Japanese-American woman, is a former teacher longtime community activist who lives in Philadelphia. After Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1942, Emiko was one of the 110,000 Americans who were forced from their homes into internment camps, where they were incarcerated for the war's duration. Her renowned 1978 video, Emi, documents her effort to reclaim another part of her past as she makes a pilgrimage to the place of her wartime internment -- Manzanar, California.

Perlson began making documentary and experimental video in Philadelphia in the late 1980's. She is a founding member of the Termite TV Collective, an ongoing swarm devoted to the creation of alternative media. Her award-winning collective and individual work has been broadcast on PBS and cable, exhibited nationally in museums including MOMA (NYC) and the New Museum, and shown at a wide range of festivals. She has an MFA in Film/Media Arts from Temple University, and has taught at the university level for the past decade. She is currently a mother/artist in Medford, MA, where her life sequences between family, community, art and teaching is always subject to interruption.

The Princeton Nursery School was founded in 1929 to respond to the needs of local mothers looking to place their children in a caring and educational environment while they worked outside the home. Children at the Princeton Nursery School experience diversity and daily successes, develop healthy attitudes toward mistakes, assume responsibility for their personal space and materials, and encounter decision-making opportunities in the planning of their independent activities.

Charlene Gilbert is an independent documentary film and videomaker whose award winning film, Homecoming, Sometimes I am haunted by memories of red dirt and clay, premiered nationally on PBS and won the NBPC Prized Pieces Award for Best Documentary. Ms. Gilbert also co-authored, with Quinn Eli, a companion book to the film entitled Homecoming: The Story of African American Farmers published by Beacon Press. Her most recent documentary, Children Will Listen, premiered at the 2004 AFI Silverdocs Documentary Festival and had its national primetime PBS broadcast premiere in the fall of 2005. Her films and videos have been screened in numerous international and national festivals including: FESPACO, the Athens International Film and Video Festival and the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema. Ms. Gilbert is also the recipient of several awards and fellowships including the Rockefeller Media Fellowship and the Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship award. She is currently working on a documentary project on Juvenile Justice and resides in Washington, DC where she is an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University.

Carlton Jones is a working videographer, a frequent Scribe video faciliator, and the head of Willow Grove, PA-based Carlton Jones Video.

Louis Massiah is the founder and executive director of Scribe. He also produced and directed the documentary works Louise Thompson Patterson: In Her Own Words, and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices. His award-winning works have been seen widely on public television and at international film festival and include Cecil B. Moore, an examination of the political leader and the Civil Rights struggle in Philadelphia, and A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown, on young political activists that emerged from a Hewlett video workshop at Haverford College.

Massiah's works for public television include Power! and A Nation of Law? for the award-winning series Eyes on the Prize II; <\em>Trash!, an encyclopedic look at trash as aspect of American culture; My Own Boss, exploring worker-owned and self-managed industries; and Digging Dinosaurs, profile of paleontologist, Jack Horner. In 2000, he served as senior production consultant for Robert Pinksy's Favorite Poem Project on the PBS' News Hour with Jim Lehrer. His current project, Haytian Stories, examines the complex relationship between the United States and Haiti over the last 200 years.

Centro Nueva Creation's mission is to transform their neighborhood by working with youth and families to create a better community. They believe that the assets of West Kensington outweigh the problems and that the area's youth and families have incredible resources for change. Although our community is often called "The Badlands" by the media, they like to promote it as "The Goodlands," a name more reflective of its current reality as a place where dramatic change is possible.

Founded in 1990, Urban Bridges at St. Gabrielís "[provides] nurturing educational opportunities for people of all ages in the creative arts, computer technology and literacy." The program is located in the Olney-Feltonville section of Philadelphia, and provides after-school programs focusing on literacy, the visual and performing arts, and technology, for approximately 352 children.

Lise Yasui is a filmmaker and producer based in Philadelphia. She served on the board of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association, and serves as a consulting producer on independent documentary projects with the Long Bow Group of Boston. Yasui has worked extensively in the nonprofit funding arena and as a curator and educator with a special interest in multicultural media. In 1988, she was nomintaed for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Short Subject for her film "American Experience: A Family Gathering." She was also a producer of 1995's "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" and the coordinating producer of 2003's "A Morning Sun."

Cindy Burstein is a documentary producer living and working in Philadelphia. She comes to the field with a background in community organizing and youth leadership development. Since receiving her MFA in 1997 from Rutgers University-Mason Gross School of the Arts, she has been teaching video production, producing documentaries, and collaborating with other filmmakers. Her most recent film, "Passionate Voices: American Jews and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" was created as a tool for dialogue. She served as regional outreach coordinator of theatrical release for New Yorker Films award-winning documentaries, Trembling Before G-d and My Architect. As an adjunct professor in the Film and Media Arts Department at Temple University, she continues to enlighten students about the merits of progressive media.

Montessori Genesis II (MGII) was founded in 1976 by sixteen low-income Black families. The children of these families had had a very successful Montessori pre-school experience at the Early Learning Center in the Mantua section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These parents wanted their children to continue enjoying a high quality education during their elementary years. But there was no nearby elementary school prepared to follow up on the Montessori education that had been so successful.

The group of sixteen families joined together to take on this challenge. They solicited the help of two Religious of the Assumption nuns who were trained Montessori teachers to instruct their children and started their own school, Montessori Genesis II. Serving as something of a magnet, Montessori Genesis II now draws students not only from the surrounding community, but from throughout the Philadelphia area such as North Philadelphia, Germantown, Greater Northwest Philly and beyond. The quality of the education and personal growth afforded the students at MGII is such that when they leave, they can go out and successfully navigate the waters of all levels of higher education and post-academic life.

Donna Dudick is a filmmaker, wife and mother of three. She attended Temple University ’s graduate program for Acting (Professional Actor's Training Program) in the early 1980’s, after which she earned a J.D. from the California Western Law School in San Diego , and an M. Ed. from Arcadia University in Glenside , PA. Dudick practiced law in the Philadelphia area until 1995. During this time, she maintained her interest in film and theater by exercising her burgeoning skills as a dogmatic armchair critic.

The Mommy Track is the Warrington, PA resident's first film. In 2003, she directed her second feature film, this time shooting parts of it in Bethany, WV, the Poconos, and suburban Philadelphia. THE MIDDLE VOICE is a "noir narrative" about the residents of a fictional, blue-collar town who are threatened with a doctor walk-out in the midst of a looming health care crisis.

Dudick shot and edited 2 short films in 2005: "The Trick," and "Virgilio," a short film about the American haiku poet, NickVirgilio. She also directs the Algonquin Independent Film Festival of Bucks County.

Dolores Luis Gmitter, Tondra L. Loder, Amy Roy, Pauline Stakelon all participated in the fall 2002 Documentary Production Workshop at Scribe Video Center. They were inspired by Toni Morrison's poem, The Big Box, a lyrical allegory of what happens when Patty, a good, but rambunctious student's freedoms are slowly taken away from her for "the greater good."

Nadine Patterson runs the awarding-winning film company, Harmony Image Productions. Her productions focus on African-American culture and the city of Philadelphia. Patterson is an award-winning independent producer of works such as I Used to Teach English, Anna Russell Jones: Praisesong for a Pioneering Spirit; Moving with the Dreaming; Todo El Mundo Dance!; Shizue; and LoqueeshaAshleyFranklinJosieBrown, which was part of the second season of WYBE TV35's Philadelphia Stories. She has received funding for her projects from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, WYBE, the National Black Programming Consortium, the Philadelphia Foundation and the Leeway Foundation. She has taught courses in video production at educational institutions including Scribe Video Center, Arcadia University, Temple University and Drexel University. Her latest work is Cosmic Trane, an experimental video in three parts that uses music, movement, visual art, and documentary footage to convey some of the issues explored in John Coltrane's music.