Decolonizing Reproductive Justice and Maternal Health: Conversations Across Constellations

DESCRIPTION OF THE IMMERSION:

Our Journey to South Africa

Black Women’s Blueprint will convene 30-50 reproductive justice, birth justice, maternal health practitioners, doctors and other health practitioners from the United States this spring for a journey and gathering with our counterparts in South Africa.

The goal of this gathering space is to bridge the constellations of community, and create a new theory of change - a future-forward path for reproductive justice, birth justice and perinatal health. Our goal is to awaken the ground and the grassroots, build new consciousness with philanthropy, and ready the innovations for emergent movement formations.  The moment is dire. It requires that we create rigorous frameworks that ignite hope. Follow this link for more information and to access the packet. 

Our Vision is to transform our alignment with the medical industrial and political systems that no longer serve us and take extraordinary measures to reify body sovereignty.

In South Africa, we will be hosted by Indigenous Midwife, Mmatshilo Motsei, Founder of Africa Ikalafe. This partnership is grounded in the need for community-based, spiritual and participatory, real-time interventions and action-oriented healing that leads to positive outcomes for women and babies e.g. less complications in pregnancy and childbirth, decreased maternal mortality, decreased postpartum depression, greater satisfaction and experience. 

To that end, Black Women’s Blueprint is convening a multicultural, inter-tribal and global gathering of global birth and reproductive justice, anti-racist midwives, birth workers, healers, and funders yearning for:  1) a radical alliance and a de-soiling of our dreams, 2) abolishing patriarchy and racism, 3) mapping cartographies of struggle and land stewardship, and 4) reifying body sovereignty. 

Key Outcomes for the Learning Exchange

Decolonizing Reproductive Justice and Maternal Health: A Conversation Across Constellations

1. Deepened Understanding of Decolonization in Reproductive Justice – Participants will explore the historical and ongoing colonial impacts on reproductive health, including medical racism, obstetric violence, and the erasure of Indigenous and Black birthing practices.

2. Strengthened Cross-Community Solidarity – The exchange will foster relationships between Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, creating space for shared strategies and collaborative movement-building in maternal health advocacy.

3. Integration of Ancestral and Community-Based Practices – Attendees will learn about and engage with traditional birthing, healing, and care practices that center cultural wisdom, midwifery, and holistic approaches to maternal and infant well-being.

4. Challenging Policy and Institutional Barriers – Participants will analyze current reproductive health policies and medical structures through a decolonial lens, identifying actionable steps to dismantle systemic inequities and advocate for transformative policy changes.

5. Building Sustainable Models for Liberation – The exchange will generate frameworks for reimagining reproductive justice that prioritize autonomy, sovereignty, and self-determined care systems, ensuring sustainable and community-led maternal health solutions.

   
   

Why a U.S. and South Africa Learning Exchange

The conversation about merging two worlds—community-based and institutional, holistic and systemic, traditional and modern—has always been central to movements for justice and liberation. In the context of decolonizing reproductive justice and maternal health, we are grappling with the consequences of being forced to work within a system that was never designed for us, while holding onto and reclaiming the holistic ways of care that sustained us for generations.

There has been an active dismantling of reproductive justice, including birth-work in its most ancient form and a condemnation of the traditions of indigenous and granny midwives. It is time to rebuild alliances between local and global feminist, reproductive justice advocates with traditional and holistic birth-workers in order to hold space for those of us caught in the medical industrial complex. The maternal deaths caused by unchecked racism, homophobia and transphobia, capitalism and inequity are the damages we pay as consequence when our alliances fall apart. 

“We want to recall the alliances and communities of our ancestors when they knelt at the base of trees to gather cohosh, cotton-root and calendula to soothe the pains of the afterbirth and mitigate the aftermath of gender capitalism. Nationally and globally, ancient women have birthed dreams, visions, and cartographies of hope under disastrous conditions. Today, we are called to build on the ecologies they have charted on this planet. Therefore, protecting the earth and human rights, global respectful care and dignity for women, sovereignty for the land and all bodies should be our science, our ritual and our magic”. 

- Farah Tanis, Founder, CEO, Restore Forward, Black Women’s Blueprint 

APPLY TO ATTEND OUR 2025 COHORT NOW. For any additional information, please contact us at: naimah@blueprintny.org