Zarahy Rivas and Damion DeShield

Mission and History

Scribe Video Center, is a non-profit organization founded in December of 1982 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It seeks to explore, develop and advance the use of electronic media, including video and audio, as artistic media and as tools for progressive social change. Scribe uses electronic media to document issues and ideas affecting diverse economic and cultural communities; create media works that comment on the human condition and celebrate cultural diversity. From its name, "Scribe" is a metaphor for the use of electronic recording technologies as a modern tool to document significant contemporary concerns and events.
 

Community-Based Media 

Community media can be described as any form of media that functions in service of or by a community. It includes all kinds of alternative, oppositional, participatory and collaborative media practices that have developed as an alternative to mainstream journalistic practices and media. Scribe Video Center and its mission falls under the description of community-based media. "Participation" and "access" are a large aspect of community media and Scribe’s efforts. Through workshops, community projects, and funding opportunities, Scribe offers resources for community members to create and document their stories. 
 

Power Politics Project

Power Politics is Scribe’s multi-faceted project dedicated to documenting the oral histories of Black and Latinx political leaders in Philadelphia from 1945 to the present. In our internship with Scribe we helped contribute to this documentation. As part of our internship we edited previous interview transcriptions; participated in orientation and different workshops; created WURD episode descriptions from audio of interviews; conducted research on political leaders and created a list of questions; contacted interview subjects and scheduled oral history interviews which we'd conduct. It's been an enriching experience and we've learned a great deal of Philadelphia's history through the lens of the city's Black and Latinx community.