In our fourth episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 2024 annual National Community Leadership Summit in Boston, joined by hundreds of grassroots community leaders from across the country dedicated to designing new systems grounded in the joy of children, families, and communities. As we collectively navigate a time of transition, we return to the wisdom shared from this powerful conversation with author and futurist, Mia Birdsong, and Ronda Alexander, Vital Village’s Director of Partnerships. Mia reflects on her own personal experiences with radical connection and the path it offers as we imagine a future towards collective liberation and imaginative care for one another. She shares her journey of unlearning and relearning what it means to be free and the conditions that are critical to moving towards interconnected freedom, calling on us all to dream expansively and work together to build towards a world 100 years in the future. 

Featured guest:

• Mia Birdsong, Futurist, Author and Executive Director of Next River: An Institute For Practicing the Future

Host: 

• Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources: 

• Next River - https://www.nextriver.org/
• How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community - https://miabirdsong.com/how-we-show-up

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