Jamaa Birth Village Board Opportunity

Greetings, The Historic Jamaa Birth Village Cultural Heritage Center: African Indigenous Midwifery Museum & Library Research Institute is a Maternal Health & Cultural Heritage organization, founded, grown, led, and sustained in the heart of Ferguson, Missouri. We are a living Village, a sacred cultural institution, and a home for the preservation, practice, and continuation of African Indigenous Black diasporic midwifery wisdom. We are a Black midwife-founded, birth worker-led, Black maternal health organization grounded in ancestral and cultural practices and guided by the principles of reproductive justice. Our work lives in the belief that Black birthing people, babies, families, birth workers, and communities deserve dignity, safety, culturally affirming care, bodily autonomy, the power to plan their families and futures, and access to the resources they need to thrive. We are committed to building and sustaining a model of community care that exists beyond extraction and outside of traditional capitalist frameworks. We believe our people are more than their productivity, relationships are sacred resources, and leadership can be practiced through integrity, accountability, care, and communal responsibility. That model must live throughout our organization, beginning with the people entrusted to govern and steward it. Serving on the board of Jamaa goes beyond the board seat and title. It is entering into a relationship with a sacred institution, a living archive, and a growing legacy. It means helping to protect what our ancestors carried, strengthen what Black birth workers and community members have built, and prepare this Village for generations still to come. We are looking for people who believe deep within that Black mothers and birthing people, birth workers, and the institutions created by and for our communities deserve the power to shape their own care, systems, resources, and futures. We are calling in people who understand that preserving African Indigenous midwifery history is inseparable from transforming Black maternal health today. Jamaa is entering a powerful new chapter, including a $5 million capital campaign, continued organizational growth, and a well-held leadership transition of its Founder - shifting into Emeritus status. As we move forward, we are building a board that reflects the richness of our communities, the depth of our cultural inheritance, and the boldness of the future we are creating. We're inviting nominations and applications for four board roles, each rooted in a different kind of leadership our community needs right now. We invite you to learn more, listen closely, and consider whether your experience, relationships, and gifts are being called into service within Jamaa Birth Village.