Announcing BFF’s 2022 Sustaining Birth Justice Grantees
We are thrilled to announce our second round of grants for 2022 and tell you about our phenomenal BFF Sustaining Birth Justice Grantees: Granny's Birth Initiative, Mothers for Mothers Postpartum Justice, Want to be Well Doula Services, Chocolate Milk Cafe National Inc, MAAME Inc (Mobilizing African American Mothers Empowerment), and, Naturally Nurtured Birth Services. At Birth Future Foundation we are committed to participatory grantmaking with those who are building our liberated birth future. A big thank you to our amazing grantmaking advisory committee Tanzye Hill, Cambreisha Montgomery, and RaShaunda Lugrand. And thank you to all our grassroots donors who power our Birth Future grants!
Granny Birth Initiative
Location : Louisville, Kentucky
Our organization was established in 2020 during the global pandemic. Granny’s Birth Initiative seeks to provide support for disenfranchised birthing families in Louisville and eventually the whole state of Kentucky, that are often overlooked due to societal shame or lack of acceptance. It is birthing people that are BIPOC, incarcerated or homeless girls/women, those in foster care or transitioning out that are often forgotten about or served with judgment that GBI would like to serve. Our focus is to initiate the movement to create and provide access to maternal support, childbirth education, doulas, lactation services and other resources that are the key tools in our fight to decrease maternal and infant mortality in Black and other marginalized communities.
Our most recent project is entitled Doula Dash. Doula Dash is the first of its kind maternity transportation initiative in Louisville, Kentucky. Certified doulas and birth workers respond to calls for assistance for birthing persons needing to attend prenatal/postpartum visits, WIC, pharmacy, lactation and childbirth education courses, etc. We seek to break down social determinants of health barriers which plague our city (Louisville) and our state (Kentucky). Louisville is a very segregated city, with poor access to public transportation. Our maternal health outcomes reflect barriers in access to care and services. Our doulas will also provide childcare for the birthing person to be able to attend their medical appointments, and are certified car seat technicians to also provide for safe infant and child transport. Our doula dash program connects families to the important care they need to have a healthy pregnancy, birth and beyond.
Mothers for Mothers Postpartum Justice
Location: Bay Area, California
Mothers-for-Mothers Postpartum Justice (MPJ) exists to:
share cultural postpartum recipes, traditions, and wisdoms
expose current postpartum realities
promote the reclamation of postpartum Justice principles in Black and Indigenous communities as a form of resistance, resilience, and a return to a supportive and responsive postpartum culture in our communities.
Nurture Postpartum Bags: Supporting the Postpartum Transition and Rest by Nourishing the New Mother/Birthing Person In the First Weeks Postpartum. We currently offer the parents that enroll to receive our free 6 weeks of postpartum meals through our Nourish Program a Postpartum Nurture Bag filled with all the most essential items that new parents need to journey through that often overwhelming and busy first week with baby. Many parents find themselves out and about at the stores trying to gather the items they didn't know they needed or that they may have forgotten. Rest is essential to the vital healing and bonding that occurs in the early postpartum period. Distributing these bags has helped parents commit to their rest by having everything they could need in those early days within arms reach. These bags are curated by Black birthworkers and mothers for Black mothers and birthing people, taking into account not just necessities, but items that invite parents to slow down, care and nurture themselves as they too heal and adjust to life with baby. These funds would support us in gathering more items to assemble and distribute bags for Black parents birthing this winter and spring in the Bay Area.
Postpartum rest, mental health, and support is a crucial component of Black maternal outcomes.
Want to be Well Doula Services
Location: North Carolina
In our Work-Study “Mentorship” at Want to be Well Doula Services, I have been sharing my Doula best practices and standard operating procedures with new and upcoming Doulas who want to actively serve their communities. As each of them moves through professional development workshops and monthly strategy calls, we have all highlighted the real risk of Doula Business Burnout. With your help, Want to Be Well Doula Services can assemble an incubator - with structural and entrepreneurial support - necessary for an emerging Black Doula Cooperative. This project is necessary for fashioning the foundation for thriving Doula businesses that serve families who are most at risk for childbirth complications and uninformed healthcare periods.
Chocolate Milk Cafe National Inc
Location: Missouri
Our mission is to make sure that we, as families of the African Diaspora, receive lactation and infant feeding support and reclaim human milk as the first food of Black communities everywhere, starting with the United States. Chocolate Milk Café is a national network of Black Human Milk Advocates and Lactation Professionals who have come together in partnership to provide support, education, and advocacy to families of the African Diaspora who seek to provide or are providing human milk to their children; through peer led support groups, educational sessions, and events focused on advocacy and empowerment.
Chocolate Milk Life Initiative: The Milk Life Initiative is a 3 hour interactive course for expectant people. The class is designed to help lay the foundation for your feeding journey. We will discuss the benefits of human milk, anatomy and physiology, milk production and composition, latch and positioning, normal newborn behavior and milk expression. Participants will know when to reach out for support and where to access support for some of the most common challenges in the early days, weeks and whole journey. Funding for this project will cover the cost to provide 40 families with the course in addition to materials for facilitators.
MAAME Inc (Mobilizing African American Mothers Empowerment)
Location : Triangle area of North Carolina
MAAME will empower Black, Indigenous, and other Birthing People of color to navigate systems and mobilize to offer resources, services, and support for holistic maternal health, wellness, sustainable communities, and economic advancement. MAAME, Inc was established in 2018 MAAME, Inc is a BIPOC organization that provides community-based doula services on a sliding scale for birthing people in the Triangle area of North Carolina. These funds will be used to sponsor birthing people that are unable to pay the fees associated with doula care so that they have access to homebirth services. The funds will be allocated to services related to prenatal care, birth support, postpartum support or lactation support in the home dependent on the needs of the client.
These resources would flow directly to serving BIPOC birthing people in our community and provide an equitable wage for our birth workers that support the families of Durham North Carolina. The opportunity to initiate services and engage birthing people will not only allow us to provide educational, emotional, and physical support throughout the perinatal phase, but will also allow us to engage them to help navigate to additional services that can be acquired through the community. This project grants us the opportunity to advocate and teach our clients how to advocate for themselves
Naturally Nurtured Birth Services
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Naturally Nurtured Birth is a black women led Memphis, TN based doula service for families, expecting families and industry professionals. Naturally Nurtured Birth Services provides parents with the education and resources they need to make confident decisions for themselves and their family. Naturally Nurtured Birth Services offers customized care and support through pregnancy, postpartum and parenthood. The mission of Naturally Nurtured Birth Services is to amplify the voices of birthing people and improve black maternal health in our community by providing doula care and offering culturally appropriate support to those at risk of poor outcomes.
Naturally Nurtured Birth Services has served almost 100 families since beginning in 2018.
Naturally Nurtured Birth Services clients were 75% black and 25% white.
Naturally Nurtured Birth Services provided financial assistance to 13% of their clients.
Naturally Nurtured Birth Services works locally with CHOICES. Center for Reproductive Health a local black led midwifery and reproductive health clinic.
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