Alumni Spotlight: Visda Carson - WAMA

Meet Visda Carson, CU Boulder Alumna, Leeds Professor, and CEO of We Are More Alike (WAMA), a children’s book series that highlights the joy that togetherness brings. Visda has lived in Colorado for the past 40 years and is a CU Buff through and through.  She attended CU Boulder, double majored in Molecular Biology and English, and also completed her MBA. Visda is currently a professor at the School of Business and is a Deming Catalyst Board Member! 

Recently, Visda released a  children's book titled, We Play Music Together, which has been in the making for almost four years! The book was published under her organization WAMA and aims to highlight the joy that togetherness brings. Visda was inspired by a Maya Angelou poem titled “Human Family.” Visda felt the need to create a story that would inspire younger generations to collaborate, listen, and understand each other. 

About WAMA

Visda refers to WAMA as her ‘passion project.’ Inspiration for WAMA came in late 2016 when she became concerned after noticing instances of hate and discrimination in our world. She thought about what she could do to share her own personal experiences about togetherness and collaboration to try to encourage change for the better.

The goal of her children's book series is to highlight the alikeness among human beings while celebrating the differences in our physical appearance. Each book represents boys and girls across all six continents. Visda's most recent book, We Play Music Together, is about music. The idea is to help children learn and take comfort in the fact that we all have a lot in common and to be tolerant of each other while appreciating our differences. 

Net profits from the book and merchandise sales will be donated to various nonprofit organizations. One of the selected non-profits, Parlando School of Musical Arts, is located here in Boulder! Parlando aims to share the love of music and collaboration with people of all ages and backgrounds.  Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) is the other non-profit organization and is located in Denver.  CCJA is dedicated to empowering youth to creatively express themselves through the language of jazz.

The WAMA team consists of Visda (Author and Creator), Maia Scott (the Illustrator), and Sara Heideman (Graphic Designer.) The collaboration of the WAMA team reflects the message that they are aiming to convey as a diverse group of women collaborating to create something beautiful.

The book is currently available on her website and was released on May 4th. You may also contact Visda directly at wama.together@gmail.com. 

COVID-19 Implications

Visda notes that her book emerged as a silver lining from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Visda enjoys traveling and if it weren't for COVID-19, she would likely have been too busy to focus on her book. With the pandemic limiting all activities, Visda was able to fully commit to her children's book and actually work on the WAMA project.

Upcoming Projects

Visda’s next book will be titled “We Dance Together.” She plans to add more to the series and continue the common theme of togetherness.

Advice for Current Students

Visda provides the following advice to students:

“Take the opportunity to connect with as many other students as you can in terms of listening to other perspectives whether it's in the classroom, clubs, or sports. When you add two plus two, you end up with ten, which is a lot more than four. Learn to listen to each other, and take other perspectives into consideration.”