This past year we expanded our free full-spectrum support programs to help ensure that birthing people and families with financial barriers have access to doula care and birth support. These programs also provide paid employment opportunities for doulas, and provide experiential learning opportunities for doulas-in-training. Our free programs are offered virtually and in-person. They include: 

• Birth Planning 

• Labor Preparation

• Postpartum Planning

• Postpartum Check-ins

• Abortion and Loss Support: 

We advocate for the right to locally, organically, and sustainably grown food and aim to make it accessible to African-Indigenous communities. We also know that agriculture is central to any self-sustained community. We received our first $10,000 grant from the National Black Food & Justice Alliance to fund our FSAF Initiative. We are stewarding and installing urban community gardening systems with which we (1) grow & distribute food, (2) educate the people, (3) collect data to duplicate & expand project across the Chicagoland area and in Huntsville, AL Currently we steward garden plots at Brickyard Community Garden and Kumunda Community Garden in the Woodlawn community of South Side Chicago.  If you'd like to collaborate with us, fill out this form! Peep our event page for gardening and farmers market link ups! 

(Re)Birth Academy is our intergenerational, multicurricular learning center. Our network supports and connects families, educators, learning cooperatives, and community education programs both online and in-person, primarily offering resources, events and courses. 

In the past year our education efforts have been focused on developing a learning program that can be offered to public, private and home schools. We created an education program centered around Life Cycles. This program takes a practical, interactive approach to teaching youth about the life cycles of plants, animals, and humans, as a segue into learning about human reproductive cycles–  from a holistic lens. 

Seedlings: In Part One of this program, students work hands-on with soil-based or hydroponic gardens, and natural environments as they learn beginner concepts of botany, herbology, anatomy and physiology, relevant to plant, animal and human reproduction. This program is meant to engage learners with different life forms and offer a gentle introduction to the reproductive and sex education that they will receive in middle and/or high school. Our learning group will be meeting 1-2 times per week for four-week cycles throughout the spring, summer, and early fall. 

Our virtual library, which is composed of scholarly articles, books, and media, is a resource for new and aspiring birth workers to gain an evidence-based understanding of the current birth world & what it needs from activists and advocates. We are expanding the library beyond birth work this year.  Email us at therebirthsociety@gmail.com for access. 

We hope to partner with educators of various fields of study to provide more essential trainings, teachings and tools that will help uplift our community! If you are an educator looking to offer classes, trainings, or discussions, fill out this form! If you would like to sign up for our Birth & Postpartum Doula trainings, click here. 

We currently offer in-person ongoing family-friendly events called Link Ups During these gatherings, families are invited to join us in exploring, learning and playing. We have visited museums, hosted hikes, met at parks, dined at cultural restaurants, curated creative spaces and partnered with other organizations to offer our youth a rich environment of creative expression, fun, and scholarship.

For 2024, we have a series of community building events that will roll out through an initiative we call “Link Up.” Each month of the Spring, Summer and Fall— we will be inviting families and people of all ages to “Link Up” with us and each other at different locations around the city, that are easy to access, affordable, and that we would consider “light-weight” in terms of planning and expense. We know that play, exploration, connection and being in nature can improve our quality of life, and we want to help normalize these activities within the BIPOC & ALANA communities.​​

Would you like to collaborate with us on future events? Are you interested in partnerships, sponsorships and vendor opportunities? If so, fill out this form!

Check out our upcoming events on our Link Up! page. 

In 2023 we curated wellness events and spaces where our community members could gather and take part in affordable holistic healing services, workshops, ceremonies and experiences. Our goal has been to support the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health of people in our community. 

A few of our key wellness spaces this past year included: 

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• “Hey Mama” Support Circle - May 2023; November 2023

• Hoodoo Heritage Month Fest - October 2023

• Lake Katherine Link Up - October 2023

• Little River Canyon Hike - June 2023

• NGVP Ubuntu Collective Retreat - February 2024

• International Women’s Day Dinner - March 2024

• Color Theory Dinner Circle - April 2024

• Garden Girlies Link Ups - Spring/Summer 2024

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2024-25 Key Wellness Spaces

• (Re)Birth Camping Trip (September 2024)- our 3-day, 2-night nature-immersive camping trip to Nature's Garden for Victory & Peace in Tuskegee, AL for their Healing Arts in Nature Festival! 

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• Cultural Healing Arts Festival (June 28, 2024)- CHA Fest is a full-day cultural celebration that showcases healers, artists and creatives whose work contributes to the healing & empowerment of our collective communities. This outdoor event features live performances, yoga, wellness vendors, arts and crafts, food, interactive workshops, and a community kickball game.

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• Hoodoo Heritage Month Festivities (October 2024) -The Hoodoo Heritage Month Festivities & Festival celebrates African-American cultural history and spiritual traditions, and their role in our liberation! This event features wellness vendors, arts and crafts, musical performances, interactive workshops and an open mic. We strongly support the reclamation and restoration of African-Indigenous spiritual traditions and religions, which we believe can help provide healing and empowerment to our community. We aim to make this an annual celebratory event.​

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This past year, we began donating Free Birth Baskets to Chicago families, prioritizing families on the city’s south side. A part of our Reproductive Justice praxis is ensuring that people are able to live and be in environments that support having children and raising families. We support such environments by providing families w/ necessities and care items such as diapers, baby clothes, first aid kits, feeding supplies, wellness tools, and body care essentials. 

So far in 2024, we have supplied 10 families with these baskets, and have donated baskets to the Chicago South Side Birth Center to be distributed to families in their care network. We aim to distribute 50 this year! 

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The birth basket program was initiated as a segue into our long awaited Southside Community Baby Shower launch. When faced with the barrier of having no suitable or affordable location to house our baby showers last year, we came up with the idea to bring the showering directly to each family through the birth baskets. Thanks to a community partnership, we officially have a physical location to host our Community Baby Showers. The first one will take place in November 2024. 

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We are accepting donations for birth baskets and community baby showers. Donations can be sent to Cash App: $RebirthSociety or Zelle therebirthsociety@gmail.com. Please input "birth baskets" or "community baby showers" in the notes/for section. 

From 2023 to 2025, we aim to provide mutual aid relief to pregnant,  disabled, elderly, incarcerated, and financially-challenged people in our community. We have two categories for our mutual aid efforts: Monetary & Service-Based. Monetary mutual aid requires us to crowdfund and allocate a portion of our grant funding. Service-based mutual aid requires us to organize volunteers to perform services for people in need. Services include but aren’t limited to grocery pick ups, ride shares, and childcare assistance.