Boston Globe - August 10, 2023
Boston-based maternal health organizations get funding boost to help cover cost of doulas, other supports:
Three local organizations receive $75,000 in grants for their work addressing the maternal health crisis
By Zeina Mohammed Globe Staff
Excerpt:
The funding is part of an effort by the Boston Women’s Fund, a foundation that supports marginalized women, girls, and gender-diverse people, to shore up funding for women of color, who are often overlooked for grants.
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BWF awards these so-called Movement Building Grants every year to support community-based solutions to systemic issues. After Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, the predominantly Black staff decided to focus on supporting reproductive justice work led by Black women.
“It was our anger and our frustration,” said Natanja Craig Oquendo, BWF’s executive director. “And, it was our love, because we knew women of color were leading amazing work, we just had to find them.”
Female-led organizations are often the first to respond to the needs of their communities during crises, providing essential services to marginalized groups, raising awareness around risks to human rights and health, and demanding accountability, according to UNICEF. But they often lack adequate financial support.
A 2020 report measuring charitable giving found that women’s and girls’ organizations received only 1.6 percent of philanthropic funding and 2.2 percent of government grants in 2017. Women of color receive only 0.5 percent of giving, according to BWF.
To find the organizations making a difference in Boston communities, BWF put a request out to its network and across its social media for people to nominate the organizations that were supporting them through reproductive issues.
“We wanted to know, when people didn’t go to hospitals, where they were finding healing that reflected them,” she said. “Because that is where change is happening.”
During listening sessions, she said community members pointed to organizations like Birth Equity and Justice Massachusetts, a statewide coalition advocating for maternal health issues and policy. The organization started in 2020 as the Massachusetts COVID-19 Maternal Equity Coalition, a group of leading health experts making policy recommendations to then-Governor Charlie Baker about how to protect pregnant and postpartum people during the pandemic.
BEJMA is now working with community groups and local leaders that provide food, transportation, and other services to the hundreds of mostly Haitian migrants temporarily housed at the Clarion Hotel in Taunton.
Yaminah Romulus, BEJMA’s co-chair, said the organization will use the funding to recruit additional staff and organize an in-person event that convenes Black maternal and reproductive health leaders to collaborate on solutions for the state’s broader maternal health crisis.