African Women's Uhuru Health Clinic

Each year, the number of babies that die during childbirth in St. Louis could populate 15 kindergarten classrooms. Imagine all that potential lost. Each neighbor, family member or friend who loses a baby faces enormous emotional suffering.

The Black community in St. Louis suffers from an infant mortality rate 3.3 times that of white people. 

A 2019 study found that Black women in St. Louis County were nearly twice as likely to die while pregnant or after giving birth compared to white women. In a city that is home to some of the best medical care in the country, African women often lack access to prenatal and postnatal care.

We recognize these grave disparities to be a symptom of an unjust system in which our power and self-determination has been taken from us. But with the Black Power Blueprint we are fighting to take back our power over our own communities and resources including the futures of our children.

We are embarking on Phase Five of the Black Power Blueprint, a Black-led wellness education center to empower Black women and girls in caring for our physical, mental and emotional wellness. The vision is to provide health and self-care programs that reinforce our traditional African culture, and invest in the future of our community with doula and childbirth educator certification programs along with opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.

The African Women’s Health Program is specifically designed to alleviate the trauma women and children face in our community due to lack of healthcare and inability to control our healthcare choices. Traditionally, the Black community values collective prosperity, a value we trace back to Africa. The African Women’s Health Program addresses the mental and physical health of Black girls and women by providing prenatal, birthing, and post-natal care, trauma-informed yoga, an annual African Girl’s Day event, a medicinal herb treatment program and more!

Following the murder of Mike Brown in 2014, the Uhuru Movement created the Black Power Blueprint in North St Louis to go beyond protest and provide solutions to the deep poverty, racial trauma, poor health, unemployment and lack of housing and healthy food our community experiences.

Black Power Blueprint is a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization project that is transforming North St. Louis through renovation, self-sustaining economic development and political power by and for the Black community.

We have long recognized that our community has the capacity to solve our own problems through self-reliance projects driven by the needs of the community, rather than having solutions imposed on us. We create programs that empower the people from the ground up to create lasting change. The African Women’s Health Center will be a much needed respite for our community.  It will empower us in taking charge of our health and well-being!

Support this innovative and empowering program- Donate today!