In the Arena with NOW

In our final episode of the season, we return to Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit and tune into the dynamic closing keynote conversation with Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director of Project Say Something. Connecting the personal and political, Camille speaks to her and her family’s multi-generational work advocating for racial justice in Alabama. She shares the efforts that she and coalitions are leading to dismantle white supremacist culture and fight against anti-Black policies, lifting up how grassroots efforts are seeking to promote education and reproductive justice. She explores what partnership with community looks like in policy and advocacy, and the need to affirm and elevate community power.

Featured guest:

• Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director, Project Say Something ​ 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Additional Resources:

• Find out more about Project Say Something’s work here: https://www.projectsaysomething.org/ 
• Explore the featured resource from the NOW Resource Library, Working Principles for Health Justice and Racial Equity, from the Praxis Project here: https://www.thepraxisproject.org/our-principles  

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Recorded by: MediaBoss

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In this special episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit, where hundreds of grassroots community leaders gathered in Boston in October. Hear opening remarks from Founding Director, Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, followed by an intimate conversation with best-selling author and educator Kiese Laymon and Ronda Alexander, Vital Village’s Director of Partnerships. Delving into the summit theme, Writing Our Story, Kiese reflects on his personal journey growing up in Jackson, Mississippi with radical honesty and vulnerability, sharing insights on racism, family, dignity, and the power of sitting in grief. He explores what joy, healing, and justice look like and the importance of writing, telling, and owning our own narratives. 

Featured guest:

• Kiese Laymon, Bestselling Author, Social Critic, and Essayist
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Additional Resources:

• Find out more about Kiese Laymon and his work: https://www.lyceumagency.com/speakers/kiese-laymon/ 
• Learn more about 2023 Summit takeaways and coalition building reflections in our latest article by Gabby Cockerham: https://www.networksofopportunity.org/post/coalition-building-key-takeaways-from-the-2023-national-community-leadership-summit 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Recorded by: MediaBoss
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings

Please note, this episode does contain some adult language.

We continue our conversation with Inés Palmarin, a long-time Boston community builder, coalition co-founder, and Vital Village National Advisory Board member dedicated to holding and creating space for mothers to connect and create solutions together. Inés unpacks what collaborative and shared leadership looks like, and shares more about her work with community economic development and other collaborative efforts that seek to ensure local resident leaders and young people not only have a voice but meaningful and authentic decision making power. We explore with Inés the importance of embracing lifelong learning and how to honor grace, hope, and dignity for ourselves, each other, and future generations of leaders to come.  

Featured guest:

• Inés Palmarin, Co Founder of Boston Mothers Care & Community Weaver /Vital Village Board Member
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Register for the 10th National Community Leadership Summit: https://www.vitalvillagesummit.org/register

Learn more about Boston Mothers Care: https://www.bostonmotherscare.org/ 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings

How can we practice collaborative relationships differently? For Inés Palmarin, long-time Boston community builder, coalition leader and Vital Village National Advisory Board member, this starts with building trust and creating intentional spaces to connect around our shared “why” and hopes for our communities. Ines reflects on her own personal journey, the creation of the Boston Mothers Care coalition, and the evolution of collaborative practices that seek to center racial equity. We explore with Inés what it looks like to sustain “heart work” within coalitions to create wellbeing and opportunity for children and families to thrive.

Featured guest:

• Inés Palmarin, Co Founder of Boston Mothers Care & Community Weaver /Vital Village Board Member
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Register for the 10th National Community Leadership Summit: https://www.vitalvillagesummit.org/register

Learn more about Boston Mothers Care: https://www.bostonmotherscare.org/

Additional Resources:
Explore the featured resource from the NOW Resource Library, Building Diverse Community Based Coalitions, here: https://www.networksofopportunity.org/resources/Building-Diverse-Community-Based-Coalitions 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

Tune into the next part of our conversation with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and social justice advocate in Boston and beyond. Reann delves further into her experiences with facilitating community-based participatory research and coalition building efforts, asking the critical question, “What does it mean to create spaces with community ownership of change?” particularly in the realm of health and wellbeing research. We explore what it looks like to create spaces where community members have the resources -- and the power -- to co-design research, and other community initiatives, and how collaboration rather than competition can help foster innovation and transformation. 

Featured guest:

• Reann Gibson, Community researcher and social justice advocate 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Read Reann’s latest article on ownership of change at: https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/blog/2023/06/researchers-build-community-power-to-influence-health-in-gentrifing-neighborhoods.html?channelid=xsp&cid=1003629

Register for the 10th National Community Leadership Summit at: https://www.vitalvillagesummit.org/register 

Additional Resource:

Explore the featured resource from the NOW Resource Library, Beyond Lessons In The Field: Community Engagement in Promise Neighborhoods, here: https://www.networksofopportunity.org/resources/Beyond-Lessons-In-The-Field%3A-Community-Engagement-in-Promise-Neighborhoods 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

How can collaborative action support joy and community healing? And what does this mean for how we define and understand leadership? In our next episode, we speak with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and an advocate for social justice in the fields of health equity, food systems, community development and more. Reann reflects on her decades-long work to support food access, transformation justice and community-based participatory research in the Boston area and shares how collaborative action can shift the narrative of leadership, making space for all different types of leaders. We explore with Reann the power of fostering community-controlled and authentic spaces to support long term healing, and how participatory research efforts, such as the Healthy Neighborhood Study, can offer important lessons for creating these opportunities. 

Featured guest:

• Reann Gibson, Community researcher and social justice advocate 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources from the episode:

• Learn more about the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition at: https://www.mattapanfoodandfit.org/
• Read more about the Edgewater Food Forest in Mattapan at: https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/05/25/edgewater-food-forest-mattapan-boston-food-forest-coalition
• Learn more about The Healthy Neighborhoods Study at: hns.mit.edu 

Additional Resource:

• Explore the featured Resource from the NOW Resource Library, A Community Builders Toolkit, here: https://www.networksofopportunity.org/resources/A-Community-Builders'-Toolkit 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In our second episode of the season, we continue the conversation with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Pathways, who reflects on the evolution of creative placemaking and community-led design work and her hopes for the future. We unpack the challenges faced in advancing systems change and navigating the fear of change in transforming oppressive systems. Allentza discusses the critical role of imagination, and how Powerful Pathways is creating spaces and opportunities to bring people together across differences, to be able to collectively imagine and build a just future together.  

Featured guest:

• Allentza Michel, Powerful Pathways 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Learn more and stay connected at: https://powerfulpathways.org/

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

Welcome to Season 2 of In the Arena with NOW! As organizers, advocates, and communities continue to work towards systems transformation, what does it look like to make cities more equitable and sustainable? And, what can we learn from leaders who are centering anti-racism and anti-classism through creative placemaking and equitable community design? In our first episode of the season, we speak with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Pathways, who has long been leading efforts to elevate community leadership at the intersection of community design, urban planning, and arts and culture work. We learn more about the need for social change agents and creative thinkers more broadly, particularly in the realm of public policy and community development planning processes that have historically excluded community voices and leadership. Hear more about Allentza’s journey, hear examples of bright spots in Boston, MA, and unpack what it means to shift away from creating policies “for” community and instead design and make policy decisions “with” community. 

Featured guest:

• Allentza Michel, Powerful Pathways 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Network

Learn more and stay connected at: https://powerfulpathways.org/ 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings

Based in New York City, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), in partnership with Fifth Avenue Committee, LSA Family Health Service,  BACDYS (Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services), and Masa, launched the Linking Immigrant Families to Quality Early Care and Education (LIFE) Project to connect quality early education to immigrant families including the city's Pre-K and 3K programs. Their work builds on the passion that immigrant families have for educational opportunities and existing relationships with community programs, identifies unique barriers and challenges faced by immigrant families, and aims to build trusting relationships with the communities served. In our final episode of Season 1, we learn from Rosario, Liza, and Kim, members and leaders of the LIFE Project. Guests reflect on what brought them to this work, the strength of the communities they work with, and the lessons learned as they champion for a more equitable early education system in New York City for immigrant communities. 

To learn more about the New York Immigration Coalition and their projects please visit, https://www.nyic.org/.

Guests include:

• Rosario Jimenez, Community Health Worker & Early Care Education Advocate, LSA Family Health Service Inc
• Liza Schwartzwald, Senior Manager of Education Policy, New York Immigration Coalition 
• Kim Sykes, Director of Education Policy, New York Immigration Coalition
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Network

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music By: Morgan Breland

Edited by: Resonate Recordings

What does it look like to engage with community stakeholders to co-design a community plan for revitalization that authentically centers the needs of the local neighborhood? In our 14th episode we feature Austin Neighborhood Network, located in the largest geographic neighborhood of Chicago, to learn more about their participatory efforts to collectively transform their community. Listen in to learn more from Jose Abonce, Ruth Kimble, and Sandra Diaz, as they share the successes, challenges, and insight about how their coalition works to build up community infrastructure by following four of the highest priorities set by community members as part of their Quality of Life Plan, including 1) access to quality early learning opportunities, 2) living wage careers, 3) safe neighborhoods and, and 4) healthy and affordable housing.  

To learn more about the Network and their backbone organization, Austin Coming Together visit their website https://austincomingtogether.org/.

• Jose Abonce, Lead Organizer, Austin Coming Together
• Ruth Kimbel, Community Partner & Owner/ Operator of Austin Childcare Provider’s Network
• Sandra Diaz, HUB Coordinator, Austin Coming Together
•  Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, Vital Village Networks

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music By: Morgan Breland

Edited by: Resonate Recordings