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Through two insightful program sessions, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation brought critically important discussions about children and our collective futures to the 2024 Atlantic Festival.
In today’s challenging environments, preserving what kids and families need to thrive – early childcare, access to health care and their family’s economic security – is essential to growing our collective future. WKKF Chief of Strategy and Impact Dr. Carla Thompson Payton joined The AtlanticLIVE’s Executive Vice President Candace Montgomery in a conversation about the intersecting issues of today and the policy solutions needed to serve children and families first, especially for communities most impacted by post-pandemic challenges, political polarization and racial inequities.
In a session entitled “How Are the Children?”, Payton shared her candid perspectives. “This question is one that the Kellogg Foundation asks every time we meet with communities because we know children are the future, and we need to create supportive environments that address the challenges they face. COVID-19 decimated many communities, particularly communities that are Black or Indigenous or Latino, but the long-term implications of that are not well recognized.”
Montgomery and Payton covered the multi-pronged challenges to supportive environments, highlighting how severe underfunding of education, access to high-quality teaching staff in early childhood education, diminishing graduation rates for children of color and eroding enrollment in children’s health insurance programs are all jeopardizing the ability for children to thrive now and in the future. Payton called on the audience to leverage the networks they interact with daily to share the message around the importance of public policy advocacy and taking collective action to make sure all children are healthy and have a path to prosperity moving forward.
“How are you raising issues around children, families and communities in your day-to-day? How are you helping to shift the narrative so it is reflective of lived experiences of the communities you reside in?”Dr. Carla Thompson Payton, chief strategist and impact officer
“How are you raising issues around children, families and communities in your day-to-day? How are you helping to shift the narrative so it is reflective of lived experiences of the communities you reside in?”
On the second day of the festival, Dr. Alandra Washington, WKKF’s chief of transformation and organizational effectiveness, and Atlantic Editor Nick Thompson took a candid look at issues around the inclusiveness of AI during The Future of Equitable AI session.
Framed around a future where all children, families and communities have equitable opportunities to thrive, the discussion highlighted risks around universal access to AI and the roles needed for democratizing AI to promote racial equity.
Washington opened the conversation focusing on racial equity and racial healing and the work that must be done to ensure that communities are restored to wholeness and address the issues that most impact children, their families and their communities.
A helpful guide for considering the forces like AI that affect the well-being of children, families and communities is the foundation’s recently released report “Lighting Up the Future for Children: Balancing Urgent Needs and Future Opportunities.” As referenced by Washington, the report centers on a strategic foresight map of the next decade that considers forces, such as AI, likely to grow in influence over the next ten years. AI represents both opportunity and risk. These include a lack of access to AI tools among communities that have been historically marginalized, the risk of exacerbating racial gaps in economic opportunities, and the concern that biases in algorithms and modeling are reinforcing common negative racial stereotypes.
“At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we believe that people in the community have the inherent capacity to solve their own problems. So [the question is], how are we ensuring that we are going to the community and really lifting up the voices, the concerns, the wisdom, and the innovation we know we can find within them?”Dr. Alandra Washington, chief of transformation and organizational effectiveness officer
“At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we believe that people in the community have the inherent capacity to solve their own problems. So [the question is], how are we ensuring that we are going to the community and really lifting up the voices, the concerns, the wisdom, and the innovation we know we can find within them?”
Washington encouraged listeners to download “Lighting Up the Future for Children” to learn more about this issue and see where there are opportunities to engage with civic organizations, nonprofit organizations, and community leaders who focus on the future of children. As a report that included insights from hundreds of grantees, community leaders, experts and others, it prioritizes balancing the urgent needs of now with the future of what we want for our children and having collective conversations about the decisions we need to make. As Washington and Thompson noted, conversations around racial healing, racial equity and equitable access to education for all children and responsible use of technology in education are more critical than ever. This work is vital to building trust into 2025 and beyond.