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Birth Justice Town Hall
February 8, 2022
6:30PM - 8:00PM
Birth Detroit and Mothering Justice invites you to join us via
Zoom in envisioning a future of birth equity and justice in Michigan that is rooted in community, racial equality and gender equality.
HOSTS
Tatiana Omolo, MPP, MSW, is the Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager at Mothering Justice. In this role, Tatiana manages the organization’s government affairs and policy strategies at the local, state, and national level. Her early childhood years were spent living in Moscow, Russia, and Mombasa, Kenya, before moving to California. Growing up in a multicultural and multi-racial family fueled her interest in global racial and gender disparity. A graduate of Pomona College, where she earned her BA in Sociology, Tatiana also holds an MPP and MSW from the University of Michigan, where her research and policy focus concentrated on the intersection of racial and gender inequality within global and domestic political systems and communities. Tatiana is passionate about empowering communities to create and advocate for community-developed policies that center the lived experiences of our most vulnerable members.
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Elon Geffrard BS, ICCE, CLC, CD (DONA) is a co-founder and Program Director at Birth Detroit. She has been a birth doula since 2016, she came to doula work "accidentally" after being a home visitor for a local health department. While maintaining a private and community based doula practice, Elon has served as project coordinator, statewide speaker and consultant with a number of public health projects but finds her greatest joys in serving women as they transition into motherhood and fostering shifts in attitudes, policy, and practice around pregnancy, labor and birth- at the system’s level. She is a certified parent educator (Effective Black Parenting), certified childbirth educator (ICEA), trained in Lamaze childbirth education and is a certified lactation consultant (ALPP). She brings to the Birth Detroit team a passion for nurturing expectant families and enhancing the quality of women's health services.
FACILITATORS
Shanayl Bennett is a birth worker and mom of three from the Eastside of Detroit. She has a background in community health work and family planning. Currently, she is the Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice Organizer at Mothering Justice. She is hoping to use her personal and professional experience to become a change agent in the community around access to quality care in the maternal health space.
Indra Lusero is a birth justice attorney who loves to tackle new territory, dive-in to cutting-edge issues and ideas, and navigate periods of change and uncertainty. Indra is the founder of Elephant Circle and the Birth Rights Bar Association. As a Queer, Genderqueer, Latinx parent rooted in the Rocky Mountain West Indra is attuned to the importance of people on the margins and their role in leading us to dismantle oppressive systems and build a more equitable world. Indra practices a multidisciplinary approach including legal advocacy, community-based lobbying and rulemaking, community organizing, arts and education.
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Indra regularly speaks about birth justice, informed consent, and policy approaches to substance use and pregnancy. Indra was the architect of Colorado’s 2021 Birth Equity legislation.
Leseliey Welch, MPH, MBA, is a public health leader with a business mind and a visionary heart, holding love as a guiding value, a way of being, an action and a politic. She is Co-founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, a mom and a tireless advocate for work that makes communities stronger, healthier and more free. Leseliey leads a team of birth workers, birth advocates and community leaders planning Detroit’s first freestanding community birth center Birth Detroit and is proud of the launch of Birth Center Equity to grow and sustain birth centers led by Black, Indigenous and people of color across the country. Leseliey has nearly two decades of leadership experience in city, state and national health organizations. She earned her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, Master of Public Health with a certificate in Women’s and Reproductive Health, and Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Download our 2022
State of Birth Justice Toolkit
PARTNERS
Mothering Justice’s mission is to empower mothers of color to influence policy on behalf of themselves and their families.
Inspired by elephants who give birth within a circle of support, Elephant Circle envisions a world where all people have a circle of support for the entire perinatal period. Birth justice occurs when everyone is equally capable of self-determination during the perinatal period, when their self-determination is supported and amplified.
SisterSong’s mission is to strengthen and amplify the collective voices of indigenous women and women of color to achieve reproductive justice by eradicating reproductive oppression and securing human rights.
