Northeast High School grad wins video award

Cindy Pham has always wanted to work in the television and film industry.

So, while at Northeast High School, she got involved in an after-school program with PhillyCAM, the nonprofit that operates the city’s public access television station.

Pham, 18, who has since graduated, was part of a group of students honored by PhillyCAM last month for their work covering an anti-gun violence march. They won the organization’s “Community Responder Award.”

Pham, along with Devontay Crawford, Khandace Mitchell, Nicole Rouse and Torey Smith, produced a video for PhillyCAM documenting the “March for Our Lives” student walkout and demonstration last March.

The march covered in the video occurred March 24 in Center City and was the result of student-led activism in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead. Although the largest event was held in Washington, D.C., hundreds of similar demonstrations were held across the country.

Pham was a senior at Northeast at the time, and she and other group members were motivated to address the topic of gun violence.

“Gun violence is a really important issue that we need to touch on,” she said. “Making a video about it is shedding a light on the topic.”

Pham, of Juniata, has continued to pursue a career in the media. She is now studying film and TV at Drexel University.

“I feel like the media is an outlet that’s growing and growing every single day,” she said. “It’s an outlet for people to get their messages across.”

“As an Asian-American, I believe in representation in the media and how important it is to tell stories that are are unheard of or just not shed on as much,” Pham added. ••