What is the New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative?
The Women's Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI, the Initiative) grows out of the organizing efforts of INCITE! New Orleans and local health care practitioners and organizers working to close the gaps that had been left in health care provision for low-income and uninsured communities of color most ravished by Hurricane Katrina and government negligence. The Initiative works to ensure that community-based strategies to improve health care are effective and empowering to all women and their communities, by centering the experiences of low-income and uninsured women of color living in the intersections of oppressions based on race, gender identity and expression, sexuality, immigration status, ability, and class.
WHJI is a multi-dimensional community-based organizing project centered on improving women of color's health status and access to quality, affordable, and safe health care services integrating sexual health with reproductive and environmental justice. The Initiative's programs include a women�s health clinic, a sexual health literacy and reproductive justice campaign, a community health and wellness projects, and a women's health and violence prevention project - all incorporating grassroots organizing, community-based participatory action research, and multimedia.
The programs of WHJI are fertile ground for organizing and educating women of color who are vulnerable to violence, exploitation and discrimination. WHJI integrates a consciousness of the impact that violence, poverty, gender inequalities, trauma, coercive sterilization policies, and the harmful effects of toxic environments have on women's health and well-being. Providing services and information about these topics is not enough to ensure women and girls of color have adequate information to make healthy decisions about their bodies, sexuality, and reproduction. We therefore prioritize strategies that incorporate both health services to meet women's immediate needs and community organizing for gender, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
Who We Are:
We are multi-racial, women of color led and mostly compromised, community-based volunteer collective of women feminists, health practitioners, organizers, and researchers. It is important to WHJI that the racial makeup of the collective reflects the communities we organize with and in. Collective members perform various functions in medical care, outreach, volunteer coordination, program development, administration, fundraising, and much more. The Initiative works in partnership with various community-based organizations, non-profits, and coalitions in supporting women's self-determination to make healthy decisions about their bodies, sexuality, and reproduction.
What We Do:
The Women's Health & Justice Initiative engages in activities that:
** Foster leadership among women of color most vulnerable to gender-based violence, sexual coercion, and poverty
** Organize a grassroots base to demand and create sexual health and reproductive justice
** Provide safe, affordable, and adequate health care services to low income and uninsured women of color
** Facilitate community wellness projects and workshops that increase women's self-determination to address their health needs
** Promote collaborations and coalition building with other social justice organizations
The Women's Health Clinic: The mission of the women's health clinic is to equip women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, and reproduction by providing quality, affordable, and safe health care services to low income and uninsured women of color in the New Orleans area through a holistic, community-centered well woman approach to primary health care integrating sexual health and reproductive justice.
The women's health clinic, located at 1406 Esplanade Ave. in the historic Tremé Community - one of the oldest communities of free people of color in the U.S. , will offer a comprehensive, integrated program of quality, affordable, and safe preventative health care and counseling services specific to the needs of women under a primary care model. The obstetrical/gynecological, sexual health, and primary care services will be available to all women, regardless of ability to pay. By offering the services on a sliding fee scale, we will help to ensure that every woman, particularly women of color, has access to care. The women's health clinic services will be provided by a team of nurse practitioners - registered nurses with additional advanced training in a health care specialty area - who will work in collaboration with a medical director, to promote self-care and provide ways for women to avoid illness, take care of their bodies, and explore a wide range of possible pathways to wellness.
Our services will include:
Well Woman Gynecological Care: Comprehensive preventative and wellness gynecological care (including pap smears, pelvic exams, and treatment of irregular menstruation, vaginal urinary tract and sexually transmitted infections); breast health (including breast feeding support and mammograms referrals); care for women who partner with women; reproductive and sexual health education; menopausal management; and counseling and referral services
Prenatal/Midwifery Care: Comprehensive preconception counseling, pre-natal care, intrapartum support, post-partum care, doula and labor assistance education and support, breast health (including breast feeding support); and midwifery care
Sexual Health Care: Comprehensive sex education, pregnancy testing, access to safe and effective contraceptives, diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, voluntary and confidential HIV screening and counseling, sensitivity to trans and gender non-conforming affirmative health care; referrals to support services, reproductive and sexual health education, violence prevention and sexual behavior risk reduction education and planning.
General Chronic Care: complementary preventative chronic disease care including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, stoke; cardiac risk assessment, physical exams, and stress and depression management
Alternate Holistic Care: Integrated health strategies, including preventive, herbal and alternative therapies.
Counseling & Education Services: comprehensive sexual health and gender justice education, stress & depression assessments and counseling, peer and trauma counseling, domestic & sexual violence prevention advocacy and referrals, and nutrition and fitness education, and self-help workshops.
The women's health clinic is scheduled to open in late Fall 2006.
The Tremé Community & New Orleans: The women's health clinic will be located in the historic Tremé community, one of the oldest communities of free people of color in the United States. First developed in the late 1700s, the Tremé neighborhood receives its name from a French hat maker, Claude Tremé who owned a small portion of the land for several decades. In the early 1800's Tremé sold 75 percent of his land to free people of color. The vibrant cultural landscape and resistance history of the Tremé community grows out of its African and Haitian roots.
According to the US census, Pre-Katrina, the Tremé community was home to some 8,853 people, 56 percent of whom were female and 92 percent black. The average household income was about $19,500 (the average in Orleans Parish is $43,100 and in the U.S. it's $56,600). 44% of households in this community made less than $10,000. 81% of children in the area ages 0-5 live below poverty level, and 30% of the inhabitants living in Tremé reported having a disability, not including people who are institutionalized, compared to a 19% national average. Despite this harsh social reality and the disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina, the people of Tremé continue the work of honoring its tradition and history of resistance, social support and cohesion.
The harsh social reality for the residents of the Tremé community is synonymous with most other communities of color throughout New Orleans. Pre-Katrina New Orleans was home to 484,000 people, 52% were female and 68% were black. In 2004, 25.9 % of women lived below the federal poverty line, compared with only 20 % of men, yet both were twice the national average. Over 14,000 families resided in public or Section 8 housing, both of which were often sub-standard due to years of government neglect and both were especially targets for police brutality. With most communities of color scattered all over the United States , the struggle for the right to return and community cohesion is even more difficult, but not impossible for the Katrina survivors.
How You Can Help!
Join or Support A Delegation:
Volunteers with health care, education, community health promotion and stress, grief, domestic violence, and sexual assault counseling experience are urgently needed to support the work of the Women's Health and Justice Initiative (WHJI), as are volunteers with administrative, multi-media, and construction skills.
We strongly suggests that volunteers plan to stay at least a week, and arrive between the 1st and the 15th of the month so that the local community can best accommodate everyone without a sense of weariness in a city still operating with limited resources. Between 3 and 6 volunteers can adequately be accommodated. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE PRIORITIZING THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN OF COLOR IN THESE DELEGATIONS.
Be aware that delegation participants will be housed under varying conditions (on sofas, futons, air mattresses) and will be asked to bring basic supplies for themselves and to meet local needs. We will be working long hours, and will likely participate in physical work as needed to assist in various WHJI projects.
Make a Financial Donation!
If you cannot travel to New Orleans, we still need your help! The Women's Health and Justice Initiative urgently needs your financial support. Please send donations or organize a fundraiser or supply drive in your community to help meet women's basic health needs in New Orleans in the face of collapsed infrastructure, widespread presence of environmental contaminants, mold, and refuse, and failure of supplies collected by the Red Cross and FEMA to reach women most in need.
Please make checks out to the "Women's Health & Justice Initiative" and send your contribution to:
New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative
P.O. BOX 51325
New Orleans, LA 70151
Contact Us!
New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative
P.O. BOX 51325
New Orleans, LA 70151
Phone: 504-524-8626 (Administrative Office)
Email: whji_info (at) yahoo.com
Women's Health Clinic
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-524-8255 (Clinic)
504-524-8285 (Fax)
(Opening late Fall 2006)
