Jamaa Birth Village, St. Louis, MO (2025)

07/22/2025

🌟Grand Reopening: The Historic Jamaa Birth Village Cultural Heritage Center-During our 10th Anniversary Weekend October 24th🌟

As we worked to bring the Black Midwife exhibit to life over Juneteenth week, we recognized that we could no longer delay the bigger mission and vision of the org, which is to restore the cultural heritage aspects missing vastly from maternal health.

🌿Indigenous & Traditional Midwives aren’t just care providers or the alternative in maternal health-they are the foundation to a healthy family, community, world and future!

💜Over the past months, our organization has paused to work diligently with funders, partners and collaborators to bring a vision of two years to fruition: The Historic Jamaa Birth Village Cultural Heritage Center featuring:

✨African Indigenous Midwifery Museum
✨African Indigenous Midwifery Library & Research Institute
✨Okunsola’s School of Traditional Midwifery
✨Jamaa’s Historic Midwifery & Doula Care Clinic with a new cultural heritage community based model of care
✨Jamaa’s New Family Doula Training

💜After two years of visioning, touring and visiting museums & library research centers across the globe, meeting with local museum leaders, and speaking with our midwife elders to gain their permission and blessings to expand into the cultural heritage space-we are ready!

✨Follow along as we countdown to our new opening date for the Black Midwife Exhibits and our organizational Grand Reopening during our 10th anniversary weekend October 24th!

💜Visit our new website at https://jamaabirthvillage.org to learn about our work and be sure to check out the “Our Legacy” tab under About Us.

🌟Stay tuned as we share more about our new initiatives, board members, advisory councils, funders, sponsors, partners, career opportunities and ways you can show up to support and engage.

Thank you to our logo designer Art by Hannah Maria and our website designer The Website Doula!

05/31/2025

The journey to returning, restoring and reclaiming the alignment of true, original, genuine and authentic midwifery. At The Herstoric Jamaa Birth Village Cultural Heritage center, we anchor in the voice, beingness and existence of the wise ones, the ancients and the voices of precolonial Midwifery-led by our Founder The Okunsola M. Amadou-Priestess, Pioneer, Midwifery Herstorian & Folklorist.🌿

She was asked this question by an elder Traditional Healer & Midwife on the last day of the journey: “Have you been through Traditional Healing training?” Okunsola responded, “Yes mah, why?” The elder then replied, “Because I can touch your blood, we are the same.” The elder then matched arms and the markings/tatoos that both Okunsola and the elder received from their training and initiations and proceeded to share herbs with her for her journey. Since 2013, Okunsola traveled around the globe, while giving birth to, sustaining and elevating Jamaa Birth Village. She has just completed her scholarship based Indigenous Midwifery ethnographic research trip alongside Mmatshilo Motsei & Black Women’s Blueprint, in preparation for the upcoming unveiling of the Black Midwife Oracle™ Exhibition at our village. Okunsola carries lineages and centuries of wisdom with her.✨

With permission from the elders, ancients and ancestors, she has brought back treasures, gifts, knowledge and wisdom to guide us all into the the divine sacred feminine womb of birth and out of the belly of patriarchy and colonialism. 💜

Stay tuned as we transform Jamaa Birth Village into a Black Midwifery Cultural Heritage Site. ✨💜🌿

05/29/2025

The journey continues in South Africa as we prepare for the opening of the “Black Midwife Oracle™” Exhibition-featuring midwives like Ma Sisulu an Anti-Apartheid Activist and pioneer.

The Midwifery Folklorist™-Okunsola M. Amadou-studied perinatal herbs, roots, rituals and ceremonies today with Indigenous midwives and Birthworkers across the globe, linking them with the lives of midwives like Ma Sisulu and others.

She also learned about intentional Indigenous outdoor cooking preparation, grains, beans, legumes and proteins that Indigenous midwives would prepare for preconception and beyond. Stay tuned and count down the days with us to the official opening of The Herstoric Jamaa Birth Village Cultural & Heritage Center Juneteenth week.

Photo Credit: themidwiferyfolklorist

05/27/2025

We are honoring and celebrating our Founder Okunsola M. Amadou- The Midwifery Folklorist™-themidwiferyfolklorist-on her most recent graduation from the University of Iowa Museum Studies Program!🎉

She now serves as the President of our Board of Directors and is the lead Curator of our village. Okunsola with the support of our board, team and volunteers, is currently transforming The Herstoric Jamaa Birth Village into a Cultural Heritage Site for Black Midwifery, set to debut in 3-weeks on Juneteenth!🙏🏾

Okunsola has worked closely with artist Art by Hannah Maria for the past 18-months on curating art for The Black Midwifery Oracle™ Archival Book, Oracle Deck and Guided Journal, which honors, uplifts and chronicles the lives of 28-Black ancestral midwives across the diaspora.✨

Okunsola is currently leading The Black Midwifery exhibition at Jamaa Birth Village, with a private opening on Juneteenth, and a public opening on the Summer Solstice, featuring 7-out of the 28-midwives featured in her most recent archival project. Entrance fees will be donation based.🙌🏾

As a part of her work as a museum scholar, folklorist and midwife, she was awarded a full scholarship to travel to S. Africa right after graduation, to learn with Traditional Healers, Midwives and Midwife Priestesses, and to tour museums and cultural heritage sites for the upcoming exhibit and her continued global work with Indigenous midwifery. Pictures in this post are photos of her journey with Afrika Ikalafe and blackwomensblueprint in South Africa at the Credo Mutwa Cultural Heritage Site, Nelson Mandela Museum and Pretoria University. 🌟

Stay tuned as we celebrate a decade of Black Birth Excellence at Jamaa Birth Village and as we elevate through our expansion as an organization. To learn more about The Black Midwifery Oracle™-which is a first of its kind Black midwifery archival book and oracle deck written and curated by a Black Midwife-visit TheMidwiferyFolklorist.com.💜

More to come!

05/20/2025

STL Doula & Postpartum Tornado Support💜

Today Doula, Policy Griot, Advocate and Jamaa Birth Village Volunteer Sandy came to the village and loaded up her truck with postpartum care kits and new car seats, in collaboration and partnership with , to distribute these very critical items to families impacted by the storm and tornadoes in STL.

As our community still recovers from the storms, thousands are still without electricity and stable housing as another storm system looms. We’re currently on the ground helping newly postpartum families with coolers and dry ice in keeping their milk and perishables cool for nourishment for both families and babies who are nursing.💜

We will continue our efforts and expand them as best as possible. If you’re an org on the ground serving families with little ones under two, nursing mothers or those who are expecting, DM us or send us an email at info@jamaabirthvillage.org for perinatal resources.🙏🏾

Donations to expand our reach can be made at the link in our bio or on our website at jamaabirthvillage.org/donate-jamaa/💜

*We will not share pictures of families impacted as it is inhumane to glorify one’s suffering at such a detrimental time. We will however highlight our efforts so you can join us in supporting our neighbors, communities and families.*

05/19/2025

Supporting Our Community Through The Tornado Crisis 💜

On Friday, two tornadoes tore through parts of the St. Louis area, hitting some of our most vulnerable, low-income, Black neighborhoods, the same communities that already face the harshest health disparities in the state of Missouri. We thank each of you for reaching out to Jamaa Birth Village and checking on our clients, our team, our building and our community. While our building didn’t experience any direct impact, our community did and is hurting-badly. FEMA is not yet here to truly help with the aftermath of the storm, so everyone is doing the best they can and pulling together to support one another.

We know that stress, trauma, and a sudden traumatic uprooting from one’s home can deeply impact birth outcomes, increasing the risk of preterm birth, stress-induced miscarriage, and other complications for women and birthing people. This disaster has only compounded the existing health inequities our community faces, driven by the social determinants of health like housing insecurity, financial strain, and limited access to healthcare.

But we also know the power of our village. 💪🏾 We are currently organizing support for birthing people and elders affected by this storm. Over the weekend we’ve shared resources and calls to action in our stories. We will continue to do so and will also share resources throughout the day and in the coming weeks to help restore our community’s strength, health, and stability.

At this moment, we’re working to distribute postpartum care kits, diapers, wipes, formula and breastfeeding supplies to families. If you or someone you know needs support, please stay connected. We’re here for you. To donate and support, please do so here: jamaabirthvillage.org/donate-jamaa/

Sending love, solidarity, and strength to everyone impacted. 💜

With determination and care,
The Jamaa Birth Village Family

05/11/2025

We’re wishing mothers all over the world a very Happy Mother’s Day! May love rain down on you, everyday and always. We appreciate, honor and give thanks to you.💜🙌🏾💜-Jamaa Birth Village

05/09/2025

We’re resting from May 12th-June 12th, for The Birthing of The Historic Jamaa Birth Village! 💜🙌🏾💜

During this time we will:

💜Close our doors for services as we prepare and redesign our sacred historic location.

💜We will gather together with our current and new team members to nourish ourselves and slow down, opening space to heed to the voices and guidance of our ancestors, leading us in our next sacred phase.

💜We will invite our sacred bodies to rest and realign with a renewed intentional existence that centers self-nourishment to serve others from our overflow and not from our deficit.

💜We will allow dancing, joy and togetherness to find us, no longer centering grind work culture.

💜We allow our divine work to be led in harmony by the sacred called ones who center culture, sacred maternal health, and heritage, first.

💜And as always, we wills continue to rise.

✨The Birthing of the Historic Jamaa Birth Village Rest Phase: May 12-June 12, 2025

What to expect: Quieter social media presence, offices will be closed, not currently taking new clients.

✨Save The Dates:

•Ferguson Juneteenth Celebration
June 14th

•Family Doula Training
June 18-20

•The Historic Jamaa Birth Village Private Opening
Invitation Only-Juneteenth June 19

•The Historic Jamaa Birth Village
Public Opening
Summer Solstice June 21st

We are who we’ve been waiting for!🙌🏾

05/05/2025

Today on International Day of the Midwife, we honor the sacred legacy of our Black ancestral midwives, those who caught us, blessed us, and laid the spiritual foundation for our healing paths, and all of the current pathways to midwifery.🤲🏾

We’re overjoyed to share that Jamaa Birth Village, in partnership with The Midwifery Folklorist™, will open Missouri’s first-ever Black Midwife Immersive Exhibit this Juneteenth week— “The Black Midwife Oracle™ Exhibit”.✊🏾

This sacred exhibit is rooted in the visionary project The Black Midwife Oracle™, an archival, spiritual, and storytelling collection curated by Jamaa’s founder Okunsola M. Amadou, a midwife, museum scholar & folklorist—honoring 28 Black ancestral midwives whose lives, births, rituals, and resistance shaped generations.💜

With collective stories of the descendants, loved ones and communities where the midwives served, Okunsola will take us all on a journey of remembrance, archival resonance, and the power of our ancestors.🕯️

From June 19–21, we’ll launch the unveiling of 7 immersive exhibits dedicated to 7 of these powerful ancestors. This exhibit is a spiritual return, a living altar and a cultural revolution.🙏🏾

Our collective vision is to restore the roots and sacredness of midwifery through this living, artistic, and educational space. Featuring preserved artifacts, archives and oral history, we are returning midwifery to its rightful place as cultural medicine.🌿

✨Jamaa Birth Village will remain closed to the public during installation and transformation and will reopen Juneteenth week for this historic unveiling.✨

✨Save the Date✨June 21st for the Public Opening
Come witness the womb and portal of midwife herstory.
Come and sit with and hear from the descendants and Black Grand Ancestral midwives.
And come be in the place where the Missouri Black Midwife movement was born.
More details coming soon.

Follow the for more details on The Black Midwife Oracle™. Art envisioned & curated by Okunsola, Illustrated by Hannah Maria.

04/29/2025

The Mother Poem by Mitchell M. Gissendanner

Black, beautiful, intuitive, and strong,
The matriarch, the stabilizer, the Earth's backbone.
From the beginning she excels, determined to survive.
In her womb the seed of trillions through the ages she will provide.
Unfazed by obstacles, perpetual is her drive.
Kings, queens, all royalty alike
are inherently in her bloodline.
Against all odds she presses on.
Not a moment does her love wane.
She looks down through the annals of time
And realizes she must maintain
Her aura of invincibility, her spirit of strong will,
Her disposition of I will succeed
Regardless of the mountainous hills.
She is black, bold and beautiful.
Her strength personified from birth,
She is the matriarch, she is our mother,
the backbone of the earth

📸: cbabi

04/23/2025

Say it with us: “Black mothers are deeply loved, valued, respected, supported, safe, well-taken care of, and thriving.” Let’s say this with passion, purpose and power, until this affirmation is the lived reality of every Black mother. Collectively, we will make it.💜

📸: joreyj

04/21/2025

Black Doula Day is everyday.✊🏾

Swipe to relive the wisdom from our “Black Doula Day 2025 Press Conference”, featuring global wisdom from:

✨James Hogue-The Dads Doula with FAM. James envisions a world where everybody in the birthing persons family or community plays a key role in being trained as a doula for better birth outcomes. He covers Black Doulas Demand #1.

*Jamaa Birth Village is hosting a “Family Doula Training” during the week of Juneteenth. Visit our website for more details to join!

✨Gosego Kori-Rammopo-S. African Doula specializing in caring for deaf and hard of hearing moms. Gosego uplifts the rich cultural heritage and skills that doulas carry in centering and uplifting mothers in childbirth, which should equate to equitable reimbursement for all doulas. She covers Black Doula Demand #2.

✨Sandra M. Thornhill-Policy Griot & Social Justice Doula. Sandy uplifts the core truth that we are the experts in our birthing culture & practices, our care needs, and the policies needed to support and uplift mothers, babies and families in our communities. She reminds us, that legislative spaces are “Our House”. She covers Black Doula Demand #3.

Last week-we activated all 7-of our Black Doula Demands at the Missouri State Capitol during the MO Black Maternal Health Summit, and you can too-no matter where in the world you are. The Black Doula Day toolkit is a living guide to be used at all times to advance our work. Find it here: https://BlackDoulaDay.com.

Visit our stories for a powerful Black Doula Chant. “Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Doulas house!”

Stay tuned to hear from more speakers.

Jamaa Birth Village

07/22/2025

05/31/2025

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