Chicago South Side Birth Center & Chicago Volunteer Doulas

NIRH is partnering with the Chicago South Side Birth Center (CSSBC) and the Chicago Volunteer Doulas to build successful campaigns in Chicago and beyond for municipal funding for Black birthing centers and Black community-based doulas, which are central to community care. NIRH will support the development of an advocacy campaign to educate local elected officials on the importance of funding Illinois’ community birth infrastructure and urge them to act. Black Chicagoans experience pregnancy-related mortality at four times the rate of their white counterparts. As two of the few organizations specifically serving Black Chicagoans on the South Side, CSSBC and Chicago Volunteer Doulas are well-positioned to identify opportunities for local governments in Chicago and around Illinois to invest in expanding and sustaining the Black birth workforce. NIRH will support this work by building a birth justice database and cataloging the municipal funding in other states and localities dedicated to birth work.