OUR JOY BE FULL | Seattle Black Maternal Health Week 2023

104 17th Avenue South,Seattle WA 98144

15 April, 2023

Description

BLK MAMAS (Black Liberated Kin Mobilizing Access for Maternal Autonomy & Solidarity) Collective presents Seattle Black Maternal Health Week 2023 (#BMHW23) Together with our community partners, we invite you to join us for Our Joy Be Full: Black Kin Healing the Collective Body , a dynamic community program in honor of BMHW 2023. Seattle Black Maternal Health Week is a celebration of Black Moms & Black Motherhood including queer, trans, non-binary & gender nonconforming moms, aunties, other-mothers, grannies, sister mamas & muvas. Each year, we join Black Mamas Matter Alliance and Black women across the U.S. for Black Maternal Health Week from April 11-17 to promote and amplify Black maternal health, rights, and reproductive justice. We seek to further the celebration and awareness of Black maternal health, to build community amongst Black birthworkers and Black birthing people, and to provide resources to support healthy birth outcomes in the Black community. We also seek to bring the Seattle community into the national conversation on the crisis in Black maternal health, with a focus on community-based interventions and solutions. This offering is the only event of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. This year, we join BMMA for the official 2023 programming theme: Our Bodies Belong to Us: Restoring Black Autonomy and Joy. In alignment with this year's focus, we are cultivating space for a conversation about Black mamas reclaiming our bodily autonomy and embodied practices of joy. As we create safer, dignified space for us to name the experiences that compel us to reclaim and restore our joy and autonomy, we engage in healing practices that allow us to return to the body as the site and source of our power, pleasure, purpose, and plenitude as Black mamas and kin. Our panel topics will include dialogue about Black mothers and families impacted by the criminal justice system, and centers those with experiences related to sex work and survivorship. Our goal is to remain present and intentional in our definitions of reproductive justice, and to re-center the dignity and humanity of all Black mamas, especially those who share these stories and lived experiences. In opening up this space, we aspire to undo the discourses of respectability that are too often leveraged in discussions of Black motherhood and who is deserving of our care, compassion and outrage when we acknowledge the crisis in Black maternal mortality. We are so excited to share that Sabia Wade, author of Birthing Liberation: How Reproductive Justice Can Set Us Free, will be our keynote for the program as well as joining us for our RJ book club at LOVING ROOM a day before the program. Sabia will be preceded by panelists and local gender justice advocates Ashley Albert and Doris O'Neal, as well as a Yoga Nidra practitioner Sophia Haddix. Please stay tuned for updates with the names of additional presenters, participants, and partners. Program 2:00pm | Yoga Nidra with Sophia Haddix3:00pm | BLK MAMA Marketplace & Catered Meal4:00pm | Welcome Libation & Our Joy Be Full Panel5:00pm | Keynote from Sabia Wade 5:45pm | Birthing Liberation Book Signing & CloseIncluded Yoga Nidra healing and restorative ancestral practice rooted in intentional rest (first 25 registrants - Black guests only, prioritizing Black birthing people and birthworkers)Access to BLK MAMA MarketplaceCatered mealSwag bag with a signed copy of Birthing Liberation by Sabia Wade (first 50 registrants - Black guests only, prioritizing Black birthing people and birthworkers)Accessibility Family-friendly program; infants and older youth are welcome. Supervised play is provided for children ages 2 to 10 years old. Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (LHPAI) is an ADA accessible venue. Parking is available on site, as well as street parking. Public transportation: Bus routes 2, 14, and the Seattle Streetcar First Hill Line (stop at 14th & Washington). Vendors We are still accepting applications to our BLK MAMA Marketplace from organizations and businesses that are Black-mama / Black-woman led, and that directly serve or cater to Black mothers and families. Space is limited. Please submit by March 31 for consideration. https://bit.ly/bmhw2023-vendor Seattle BMHW 2023 is a grassroots community effort made possible by Rokea Jones (Mama's Wellness & Advocacy LLC) and Kristina Clark (LOVING ROOM: diaspora books + salon). We express sincerest gratitude to our sponsors and event partners: Surge Reproductive JusticeBLKBRY LLCCity of Seattle Office of Arts & CultureFamilies of Color Seattle (FOCS)Quilted HealthHouse of Akomaand to the members of our planning committee. Please email [email protected] with questions for the planning committee. Please visit http://linktr.ee/blkmamas to register for other Seattle BMHW events during the week of April 11-17 2023. We can't wait to see your beautiful face on April 15 at LHPAI. Blessings + gratitude!