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Speaker 1: Good Day, April seventeenth, twenty twenty five, And have we

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Speaker 1: got a story of citizen ing for you today? Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm Baritunde Thurston, host of the how to Citizen podcast

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Speaker 1: which feed We are using to add a few stories

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Speaker 1: into the mix. In this moment of attacks on democracy

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Speaker 1: and undermining selfance, self governance, there is another story. There's

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Speaker 1: a story of people practicing power, of committing to the collective,

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Speaker 1: of showing up and participating, of investing in relationships. And

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Speaker 1: so we are counterprogramming this sense of collapse with short

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Speaker 1: but potent stories of people power. And today's story represents

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Speaker 1: all that. You know, It's really common to lean into

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Speaker 1: a hero story where a savior shows up, a great

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Speaker 1: business leader, a great community leader, a great politician, somebody great,

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Speaker 1: maybe Alexander or something like that. They show up and

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Speaker 1: they got the answers, and they're like, I have come

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Speaker 1: to save the people. You little people need saving. I'm

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Speaker 1: a savior, so I'm gonna do my thing at you.

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Speaker 1: And that's not what this moment needs. This moment does

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Speaker 1: not need more centralized authority. It does not need paternalism

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Speaker 1: and condescension and well intentioned but ultimately and inherently disrespectful

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Speaker 1: way of treating people. And it turns out that the

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Speaker 1: people who seem like they need the most, what they

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Speaker 1: need the least is somebody telling them what they need.

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Speaker 1: And you'll hear that in the setup to this story.

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Speaker 1: John Alexander, my colleague in this mission right now, author

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Speaker 1: of the book Citizens, is real big on this idea

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Speaker 1: that people want to be involved. I sense it myself.

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Speaker 1: There is what I call put me in coach energy.

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Speaker 1: And John tells the story of QAnon, which essentially comes

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Speaker 1: down to that was a recruitment to purpose, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, people who've fallen into that rabbit hole. Part

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Speaker 1: of what drew them in was the since that they

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Speaker 1: were part of a mission, that they were being asked

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Speaker 1: to do something. And again I love doing this collaboration

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Speaker 1: with John because he has his version of a story.

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Speaker 1: I weave my version of the story. But we're both

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Speaker 1: just happening into a story that already exists. We're not authors,

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Speaker 1: we're amplifiers and co authors at a minimum, maybe editors,

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Speaker 1: you know. But the material, the raw story, the threads

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Speaker 1: of the plotlines, that's you. That's out there, it's already

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Speaker 1: among the people, and part of what the people need

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Speaker 1: is to be needed. That's really what this story is about.

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Speaker 1: So enjoy this one. Think about organizations, operations, people you

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Speaker 1: know who start with a question rather than a statement,

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Speaker 1: who start with listening rather than speaking, uh, speaking of listening.

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Speaker 1: Check out stories dot howdocitizen dot com. Fill out our form,

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Speaker 1: share with us if you have more of these stories,

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Speaker 1: and if you are down to hear more of them. Alright,

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Speaker 1: I'm Beartunde signing off for the moment roll tape. It's

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Speaker 1: it's not a tape and if you wanna see it

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Speaker 1: visually check out the show notes on this one, or

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Speaker 1: subscribe to the emails stories about howdo citizen dot com.

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Speaker 1: We're dropping these every day and hosting them on Instagram,

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Speaker 1: LinkedIn substack blue sky and you know your television, I

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Speaker 1: have access to it. That's a different episode piece. You

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Speaker 1: know what, people in need don't need other people telling

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Speaker 1: them what they need. Assume that they can and want

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Speaker 1: to contribute, and that the first step is to ask

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Speaker 1: and to listen. This is that story.

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Speaker 2: They all left with a sense of empowerment. We asked

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Speaker 2: for this, it got done. But now we're also walking

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Speaker 2: out of here with knowledge. I am the executive director

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Speaker 2: of Step by Step, which is a nonprofit working to

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Speaker 2: walk alongside young single mothers ages twelve to twenty four

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Speaker 2: and their children. These moms are their incredibles. They're looking

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Speaker 2: for resources, they're looking for community and connection. When I

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Speaker 2: first came in, I knew what they needed. They needed

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Speaker 2: to get high self esteem and they needed to rise

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Speaker 2: above and work really hard. I started to get to

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Speaker 2: know these young women. I realized there's so much more

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Speaker 2: that we could do as an organization. We could actually

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Speaker 2: have programming that really meets their needs and their desires,

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Speaker 2: and we could grow leadership among them. People take their

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Speaker 2: agency away from them and we get the opportunity to listen,

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Speaker 2: be a listening ear. What does it look like to

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Speaker 2: flip it upside down to say to the young women,

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Speaker 2: what do you need? I got to just sit down

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Speaker 2: with them and say, your voices have never been the focus.

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Speaker 2: And it felt like a big collective sigh in the room, like, wait,

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Speaker 2: someone's listening to me. Are you sure you really want

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Speaker 2: to hear from me? When I say I want this,

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Speaker 2: are you going to follow through? And it became this

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Speaker 2: thing about trust moving at the speed of trust. It

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Speaker 2: is a slow burn and so we have to show

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Speaker 2: up consistently every single time in the same way. And

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Speaker 2: they said, we need a NARCAN training. We want to

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Speaker 2: know how to save lives in our community. We did

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Speaker 2: in NARCAN training for our volunteers, so we didn't even

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Speaker 2: consider that our moms would want to do that. And

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Speaker 2: so our local health department has an incredible NARCAN program

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Speaker 2: and the moms are asking questions, raising their hands saying

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Speaker 2: can you tell me more about this? They're leading it right,

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Speaker 2: how does this work for us? And what do we

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Speaker 2: need to get out of this session? They're just going

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Speaker 2: to ask and it was really empowering for my team

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Speaker 2: to say, look, this is an example. If we listen

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Speaker 2: and respond with what it is that they need, they

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Speaker 2: can take the lead. And they all left with a

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Speaker 2: sense of empowerment. We asked for this, it got done.

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Speaker 2: But now we're also walking out of here with knowledge

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Speaker 2: and an action plan. We can take action ourselves, and

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Speaker 2: so that also builds more community and it builds more

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Speaker 2: agency in themselves and each other. People know what they need,

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Speaker 2: they know what they want, They need to be in

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Speaker 2: a space where they have opportunity and support to do that.