One of the most effective ways to hone life skills is through immersing yourself in other places and other cultures. Whether through books, podcasts, or actual travel, diving into other people’s stories helps you develop empathy and understanding. Kelly talks to Kyra Assibey-Bonsu about the skills she developed while traveling the world, and how that inspires her work at Blackspace, an organization that utilizes the black space manifesto for neighborhood design strategy in Black and Brown communities 

Kyra believes storytelling provides everyone with the ability to empathize and understand the marginalized and unheard voices that are not commonly foregrounded in media, history books, and beyond. 

Big Takeaways:  

• (12:30) The Blackspace manifesto “enables you to walk in a way in which you are empathizing or at least actively listening...one of the principles is be a humble listener...you don't listen to respond, you listen to actually listen.” 
• (16:00)” I do think it's incredibly crucial that we walk in a world with an empathetic eye and that we are more cognizant of the struggles of those that we don't typically see.” 
• (17:00)” Whether it is, you can travel physically traveling in your mind through books, through stories or audio stories of conversations are important...you can travel to those places by movies, by audiobooks, by reading, and that's one thing...I hope that everyone is also still making an effort to really broaden their mind in a way that will lead to a better society.” 

Blackspace

Follow Kyra: IG @kymab  

LinkedIn: @Kyra Assibey Bonsu 

Twitter: @KyraBonsu (https://twitter.com/KyraBonsu/) 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyra.bonsu 

Podcast Instagram: No Country for Moving