


Erica's Uhuru Wa Kulea Giving Tuesday Fundraiser
by Erica H
$500.00
FUNDED
Campaign has ended
Supporters
Join me in supporting the Black Power Blueprint for Giving Tuesday (11/29)!
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page! I have pledged to raise $500 this Giving Tuesday toward the Black Power Blueprint’s African Women’s Health Center and Doula Training Program in North St. Louis! I have had the great opportunity to tour the Black Power Blueprint's projects twice this year and see the incredible work that this project is doing to transform their community.
North St. Louis is a neighborhood that is 95% African (black), the majority of whom live below the poverty line. African people in the St. Louis area are 3.23 times more likely than whites to live in poverty, the eighth-highest disparity out of 48 metro areas.
Through my work with the Uhuru Movement, I have learned that African newborns are more likely to survive childbirth when cared for by African birth practitioners, including doulas and midwives. Some studies show that when African women receive care from African practitioners their mortality rate is cut in half. In St. Louis, the mortality rate for African infants is 3.3 times that of white infants! As well, black women are three to four times more likely to experience a pregnancy-related death than white women.
The Uhuru wa Kulea African Women's Health Center is another black community-led project of the nonprofit African People's Education and Defense Fund that improves the well-being of the African community and helps close the huge disparities imposed on African people in overall health and life expectancy.
For white people, contributing resources to these programs is a stand of reparations to African people. Solidarity with the African community-led struggle for reparations which means repairing the damage of centuries of injustice and oppression in a country built on the original sin of slavery, genocide and colonialism.
Reparations now! ♥ Erica ♥
Each year, the number of babies that die during childbirth in St. Louis could populate 15 kindergarten classrooms. We are fighting to take back our power over our own communities and resources including the futures of our children.
We are embarking on Phase Five of the Black Power Blueprint, to create a Black-led wellness education center to empower Black women and girls in caring for our physical, mental and emotional wellness. The vision is to provide health and self-care programs that reinforce our traditional African culture, and invest in the future of our community with doula and childbirth educator certification programs along with opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.
We have long recognized that our community has the capacity to solve our own problems through self-reliance projects driven by the needs of the community, rather than having solutions imposed on us. We create programs that empower the people from the ground up to create lasting change. The Uhuru Wa Kulea Health Center will be a much needed respite for our community. It will empower us in taking charge of our health and well-being.
The Uhuru Wa Kulea African Women's Health Center is part of the Black Power Blueprint, an initiative of the African People's Education and Defense Fund and Black Star Industries.
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