Alumnae Profile

Pascha Marlin Griffiths '95

Manufacturing Possibilities for Children

Pascha Marlin Griffiths '95 always knew she wanted to make a difference in the lives of children. An inspiring MHC class on race and culture coupled with an internship at the Children's Television Workshop led her to produce a short musical about the effects of race, class, and culture on identity and self esteem for Amherst Community Television. But it wasn't until Pascha took a job teaching middle school that she really honed her idea for meaningful work with kids.

Pascha is the founder of the Possibilities Factory, a Somerville, Massachusetts-
based organization that empowers youth aged eight to sixteen by integrating video production, real-life challenges and triumphs, and good works. At summer camps and after-school programs, participants learn the basics of multimedia production by filming their peers in action as they put together group service projects. The result is an inspiring chronicle by and for “tweens” and teens meant to motivate and inspire-and it works.

“Working with the video camera was one of my favorite parts,” said one recent pFactory camper. “I felt like I was powerful. I felt like I had the energy right in my hands.”

How to motivate children pummeled by violent media images and negative stereotypes of “do-gooders” fascinates Pascha. While teaching a leadership class in northern California, she suggested her students put on a fundraiser to help a schoolmate's family who had lost their home in a fire. They not only raised $3,000 but also received enormous media attention. That got lots of other students looking for ways in which they, too, could help.

At that moment, Pascha realized she had all the elements of a meaningful curriculum. “I learned something deeper about the language of heartfelt service and reinforcement,” she says of that experience. She created the Possibilities Factory program as a thesis project in television production at Boston University and it's now being used in three after-school programs in Harlem, New York. She dreams of taking the program to strife-torn parts of the world such as the Middle East, and developing a reality television program by and for kids that inspires the values of teamwork, respect, compassion, and altruism.

“The whole point,” says Pascha, “is 'nutritious' television for kids to inspire them to do something good.”