Bulletin

Holly Ornstein Carter ’85 pairs young people with filmmakers to tell their stories, teaching empathy and global citizenry in the process. Carter started her career as a newspaper journalist, but she wanted a faster, more authentic, and more effective way of telling the stories that she saw mass media ignoring — stories about the realities of global inequality and injustice. The existing reporting, where reporters would swoop into a foreign country for a brief stay, not speaking the language, felt patronizing to Carter, who was a political science major at CC. She thought local kids could do a better job than journalists and news bureaus with dwindling budgets. In 2007, Carter started BYkids, a nonprofit documentary film production company, to let teens around the world tell their stories through film. Since then, she’s empowered nine young people, mentored by professional filmmakers, to make short documentary films about their lives and struggles. The films are broadcast on public television and distributed by Discovery Education and PenPal School, reaching hundreds of millions of viewers and students with innovative educational material.