Our Approach
Why We Exist and How We Create Change
The Issue
Our Why
Unjust, racist systems, policies and practices built over centuries contribute to disparate birth outcomes for Black and Hispanic/Latine women, birthing persons and babies.
Our Analysis
We recognize that:
•Poor and disparate birth outcomes are preventable
•They are the result of intersecting oppressions: patriarchy, misogyny, racism, ableism, capitalism, queerphobia
•Oppressions manifest as women unheard, unseen untrusted, isolated, mistreated
•Birth inequities are a systems, structural, sociopolitical issue
•Better or more healthcare will not eliminate inequities
Our Approach
We ground our work in Reproductive Justice, human rights, and intersectionality frameworks, guided by the lived experiences of Black and Latine birthing people. Our work is rooted in the belief that birthing people hold the wisdom, power, and insight needed to transform not only their care but the systems that surround them. These frameworks help us understand how power works across race, gender, class, and place. They lift up the complexity and diverse realities of Black and Latiné birthing people, center lived experiences and community wisdom in co-creating solutions, reclaim radical and caring practices that are decolonized and non-extractive, and model ways of caring that operate outside of traditional systems to model alternatives that shift norms.
We seek to transform and disrupt existing systems of oppression by practicing ...
An embodied values-based practice
Power with, not power over, and accountability to our community
Collective action across issues and identities
Liberatory economic and investing relationships
Our Strategies
We use four, mutually reinforcing strategies. Each one grows community power and changes how care happens.
01
Invest
Secure innovative funding streams that flow into the community and support liberatory community identified actions
02
Nurture
Provide ongoing support, facilitation, partnership, and leadership development that redefine care as community- and values-based
03
Organize
Grow and sustain a community where moms, birthing persons, and those who care can realize their collective power in pursuit of equitable birth outcomes.
04
Shift Power
Leverage our positionality and experience at the intersection of local institutions and the community to foster systemic change that is value-based and relational.