Let’s address maternal health inequities!

Want to do something about Black Maternal Health disparities in Ontario? We are raising funds to launch the first cohort of our CommUNITY Doulas program: The Pregnancy Project. It will bring doulas (pregnancy & postpartum, health & wellness support workers) to 10 Black families for 12 months.

Life starts in the womb. The inequities faced by Black communities in Canada start here too. Black families require and deserve better care when becoming parents, and the CommUNITY Doulas project is bringing that deeper care to families. But we need your help.

With a crumbling healthcare system in an already historically hostile clinical environment that is both consciously and unconsciously biased against Black people, many families fear for their safety–with good reason.

In the US and the UK , Black women are 3-4x more likely to die in childbirth. In Canada, a place with similar demographics and dark colonial history, next to no ethnic data exists to make this claim. Problematic.

However, we have data to confirm that Black families are more likely to experience discrimination in healthcare settings, food insecurity, and poverty in Canada— all social determinants that are proven to negatively impact health outcomes.

Birth is a significant health event, and doulas can help. Doulas are jjust one solution to a complex and deeply rooted problem. It will take all of us, especially those from within systems widely known to cause harm to Black people, to see change.

You can help counteract the harmful experiences that impact Black community health by helping to create better experiences along the pregnancy and parenting journey; experiences rooted in support and care that go deeper than the surface. Everyone could use an extra set of hands and hearts to assist the processes of pregnancy--CommUNITY Doulas will bring that care to families.

Your support of the project will mean:

This will help the project reach the following outcomes:

VISION:

The CommUNITY Doulas project is an agent for transformation through healing conversation and service. We aim to recreate the village systems and strengthen homes and networks in Black communities by providing community (not clinical) care from trusted community allies like doulas.

GOALS:

1. Create awareness and solutions for maternal health disparities in Canada

2. Improve community knowledge about doulas, their industry, and their role in decreasing disparities

3. Increase accountability from people in power by creating opportunities to support solutions

4. Support families through the challenging transitions associated with pregnancy and early parenthood

OVERVIEW OF FUNDS:

25% - Administrative: admin, website development/mgmt, logistics, community coordination and liaising, fundraising activities; grant-writing, story-telling, community & conference networking, MakeWay core supports.

25% - Independent Contractors: Compensating doulas to develop and deliver care programming | ($250/month per doula - 3hrs of care + 2hrs of program notes & admin)

50% - Direct programming; doula care, care packages, fresh produce delivery, workshops, program coordination, transportation, admin, ($500 per home each month)

$30,000 will:

kick-start the program, covering three months of programming costs,

demonstrate to sponsors that our community supports this much-needed initiative, and ensure communities are heard and supported during pregnancy and postpartum.

We are working as a project on the MakeWay Charitable Society's shared platform to bring this project to life. If you would like to give a monthly or one-time gift and receive charitable tax receipts, you can donate directly here: https://makeway.org/project/community-doulas/

Special thanks to Fiona, owner of The Delivery Womb out of Brampton, and lead doula on the advisory team, for all these beautiful images. xx