The Center for Community Health & Well-Being, Inc.
home of
Birthing Project USA:
"The Underground Railroad for New Life"
An International Organization & Resource Center for improving birth outcomes for women of color.
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In
the News The Birthing Project, The Birthing Project now has three e-mail based groups that will allow members, staff, participants and supporters to connect from any location! JOIN IN!
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Dear All,
RoLanda Wilkins, Birthing Project USA manager, and I are in the process of updating our website. It seems like only yesterday, she and I and Linda Parson (Founding Director of The Phoenix Birthing Project) were overwhelmed by a stack of over 300 letters. A small article in Essence Magazine in 1992 sparked a rush of requests from sisters all over the country for assistance in starting projects in their communities.
This was a very thoughtful and inspiring time as we saved all the letters, took them to the ocean ….opened each one and read it out loud. We asked ourselves, “Could this be true? Do these women feel as strongly about saving the babies in their communities as we do?” We said their names, their range of jobs and professions (cafeteria worker to health administrator), their cities and their reasons for wanting to start a project.
We also asked ourselves if we were capable of assuming the leadership role of guiding a national movement of ordinary women to do what big agencies and institutions had not done… improving the chances of our babies to be born and stay alive by getting to the heart of the matter.
You know the rest of the story. Since then, over 10,000 babies have been born into over 70 Birthing Projects. Four of the projects have incorporated and formed their own non-profits. Others have survived with or without funding. All have done whatever was necessary to get our babies here as safely as possible to parents who are prepared to care for them.
Our demonstration project in Sacramento has developed other models that address some of the critical variables in birth outcome. For example, not only do we provide care to pregnant women…we reach back as close to a woman’s birth and intervene in her life through adolescence and her teen years to help her make decisions and life style choices that will optimize her physical, educational and economic health when she does choose pregnancy.
The first baby born into the Birthing Project graduated from high school this year and we were able to present our first Birthing Project Scholarship, the Queen Esther Watson McDowell Scholarship was established by one of our founding mothers as her gift to us when she passed away in May 2006. So, as RoLanda and I take this walk down memory lane as we prepare for the future…we are as excited and terrified as we were in 1992. However, this time, we know what a committed group of women and men can do.
For all the years of being a part of this wonderful movement, we say thank you for allowing us to be a part of a community vision that changed the way our babies are born, welcomed and supported.
With much joy, Kathryn & RoLanda
And…no, we didn’t forget the fathers. Check out their program in our web site. |
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ord
From The Founder