Bepsie Perry

Elizabeth "Bepsie" Perry is a West Hartford community organizer who partnered with West Hartford Community Television to build multicultural programming rooted in the city's linguistic and cultural diversity. Her work included language-of-the-month video features, annual cultural year-in-review programming, and the launch of Hello! West Hartford, an initiative that used local media to build connection across the community's many language communities. In 2016 she received the ACM's Jewell Ryan-White Award for Cultural Diversity.

Her approach used community television not as a platform for preexisting organizations but as a tool for building community across difference, producing content that reflected West Hartford's actual diversity rather than its dominant cultural face.

Bepsie's work is a practical demonstration of what public access can do when it is used by organizers rather than just producers: not just putting diverse voices on television, but using television to bring diverse communities into relationship with each other.