Join Neighborhood Birth Center for Trivia Night at Long Live Roxbury!

Get ready to exercise your mind and support a great cause at our upcoming Trivia Night extravaganza! As part of our Spring Fundraising Campaign for Neighborhood Birth Center, we're aiming to reach our $10,000 goal, and we're already more than halfway there – but we need your help to push us over the finish line!

Join us at Long Live Roxbury, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from our beautiful property in Roxbury, for an evening of fun and fundraising. Test your knowledge, compete with friends and family, and vie for the title of Trivia Champion! The winning team will receive an epic swag bag filled with goodies from NBC and Long Live Roxbury.

All Trivia Night ticket purchases and donations enter you into our Spring Raffle (more drawings over the next month). And even if you don't take home the grand prize, you can still browse and purchase NBC swag onsite, showing your support in style.

So mark your calendars, get your tickets, gather your crew, and come out to Long Live Roxbury to help us get Boston the birth center we all deserve!

Purchase your tickets here!

Sharing experiences of birth with ourselves and our communities is a powerful way to process birth and “re-story” dominant and collective narratives about these experiences. But where do we go when these experiences feel beyond or outside of words? Process-based image making can be a powerful way to engage in this work outside of language and narrative. Within the world of collage, symbols, and open-ended mark-making we can explore representation and communication of experience that embraces paradox, multiplicity, ambiguity, non-linearity and lack of resolution.

This workshop is for everyone - especially those who don’t regularly draw or make images! Surrounded by scissors, glue sticks, paper, and markers, we hope to capture the experience many of us left in childhood of creating unselfconsciously. We will begin with grounding, move into a playful exercise in collective image-making, and then engage in a guided experience of individual, process-based collage work. There is no expectation to produce or share a finished image - we will engage with the joy and depth that creating for creating’s sake can bring.

Our creative flow will be supported and held by collaborating musician Shaw Pong Liu!

This workshop is for postpartum and parenting people.

Dinner is provided. This free workshop is limited to 15 participants and advance registration is required. BIPOC encouraged, all are welcome!

A transformative workshop where we share essential concepts such as choice, bodily autonomy, and equity along with additional mindset and communication tools to help identify and remove fears and help birthing people to feel empowered and knowledgeable. This empowering workshop will be facilitated by Certified Nurse Midwives, Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie, Katherine Rushfirth, and Registered Nurse, Tiffany Vassell.

By the end of this session, participants will have tools to advocate for themselves in whatever, however, wherever bringing life into the world means to them and their family.

This workshop is for people who are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant.

Dinner is provided. This free workshop is limited to 15 participants and advance registration is required. BIPOC encouraged, all are welcome!

A multi-generational birth story sharing portal designed to transform the participants by sharing and witnessing perinatal stories. Facilitated by a JP resident, Divya Kumar is a South Asian-American psychotherapist with a public health background who specializes in perinatal mental health, trauma, and the life transitions related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. She will curate a supportive and empathetic environment that welcomes open communication.

This workshop is for postpartum and parenting people.

Dinner is provided. This free workshop is limited to 15 participants and advance registration is required. BIPOC encouraged, all are welcome!

*Please note this is a space to reflect on and share different aspects of our birth stories in response to prompts. All experiences are welcome, however, this workshop is not designed as a birth trauma or a grief/loss support group. For those looking for such groups, please reach out to info@neighborhoodbirthcenter.org for more resources*

We are bringing together many stakeholders to raise awareness that midwives are a critical solution to the maternal health crisis. And specifically to encourage lawmakers to support three key bills – CPM licensure, updated birth center regulations, and full CNM reimbursement. 

The schedule of the day will be:

• 1-2-- Visit legislator offices 

• 2-3- RALLY outside on the steps

• 3-4:30- Legislative briefing w/ more details on the bills

We'll continue to share more details of speakers and get a sign up, but please mark the date in your calendar! And spread the word through your networks!

Join us for a fundraiser at Comfort Kitchen!

The connection between Neighborhood Birth Center runs deep. After experiencing a powerful home birth, Nashira Baril (founder of Neighborhood Birth Center), began researching how to scale her experience with the tenderness of community midwifery. Her early vision, rooted in community elders' vision for a birth center in Roxbury, became Neighborhood Birth Center. For years Biplaw Rai (co-founder of Comfort Kitchen) saw Nashira working on plans for the birth center at Dudley Cafe. Simultaneously, he and his co-founders were working on their own love letter to the community: a restaurant that celebrates the ingredients and flavors of the African diaspora and offers global comfort food. Comfort and community are at the heart of what Neighborhood Birth Center and Comfort Kitchen are doing.

Join us for a delicious and intimate afternoon of connecting and learning about Boston's first freestanding birth center! We want to accommodate all our guests with space and nourishment so we are asking you to come and hang in waves.

• Wave 1 is from 4:00pm - 5:00pm

• Wave 2 is from 5:30pm - 6:30pm

Please select the option that works best for you, and help spread the word by sending this link to your friends!

Transparent Ticket Pricing:

• $100 - Neighborhood Birth Center (capital campaign + building our brick-and-mortar space)

• $50 - Comfort Kitchen (food + staff)

• Ticket cost includes food. Cash bar.

About Neighborhood Birth Center:

Neighborhood Birth Center's mission is to offer comprehensive midwifery care throughout pregnancy, labor, birth and the postpartum period by integrating an independent freestanding birth center in Boston’s healthcare and community landscape. Birth is a sacred process, and when the pregnant person is centered, the experience has the power to transform and heal individuals, families, and communities. Neighborhood Birth Center is about people at the margins redesigning healthcare in ways that improve experiences and outcomes for all. For more information about our work, please visit us at www.neighborhoodbirthcenter.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook!

About Comfort Kitchen:

A Black-owned, immigrant-owned, and woman-owned cafe by day and restaurant by night in Dorchester, MA. Their food celebrates the ingredients and flavors of the African diaspora — global comfort food — connected from Asia to the Americas. Opened in January 2023 after transitioning from a series of pop-ups around Boston, Comfort Kitchen is creating a place that is actively engaged in creating space for the community.

Help Neighborhood Birth Center break boundaries by breaking pottery! Tickets here!

Please join us on August 5th for our pottery smashing fundraiser. Bring your good arm and energy, and be ready to learn more about how Neighborhood Birth Center is breaking boundaries in birth while you're breaking pieces of pottery!

Are you mad as #?@! about the maternal health crisis? Do you want to see powerful change rooted in reproductive justice and community action? Come BREAK some pottery to raise money for Neighborhood Birth Center! While you’re at it, join us in supporting local businesses and learn how you can advance community-centered birth justice in Massachusetts.

Pottery graciously donated from Indigo Fire & Feet of Clay. Protective eyewear will be provided. Please wear closed-toed shoes! 100% of the event proceeds will go to Neighborhood Birth Center.

Featuring pop-ups from:

• Organizers supporting birth justice through the Healthy Youth Act Coalition, Massachusetts Doula Coalition, Bay State Birth Coalition, and more!

About Neighborhood Birth Center:

Grounded in equity, racial and social justice, Neighborhood Birth Center’s mission is to offer comprehensive midwifery care throughout pregnancy, birthing and postpartum (fourth trimester) in communities most impacted by poor maternal and infant outcomes.

All proceeds raised go towards Neighborhood Birth Center's capital campaign and building our brick-and-mortar space in Roxbury! For more information about our work, please visit us at www.neighborhoodbirthcenter.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook!

Join us for Neighborhood Birth Center’s first golf tournament this summer! Grounded in equity, racial and social justice, Neighborhood Birth Center’s mission is to offer comprehensive midwifery care throughout pregnancy, birthing and postpartum (fourth trimester) in communities most impacted by inequitable maternal and infant outcomes.

Register here!

Program

• Registration at Pavilion Tent - 12:30 PM

• Shot Gun Start - 1:30 PM

• Reception - 6:30 PM

All proceeds will benefit Neighborhood Birth Center as they work to build Boston’s first birth center! The following sponsorship levels provide even more support towards building Neighborhood Birth Center.

Current Sponsors:

Contest Presenters

• General Air

$7,500 Co-Presenters

This primary tournament sponsorship level will help cover the cost of a welcome kitchenette area. The kitchenette will be the heart of the birth center, where families and visitors will prepare meals and nourish themselves as they receive birth center care.

• Co-presenters will also receive

  • Logo on official tournament merchandise

  • 20x10 sponsor spot and signage

  • 2 golf foursomes in the tournament

$5,000 Contest Presenters

This sponsorship level will help provide furnishings for our three birthing suites. Each spacious room will include a private bathroom and combine the comfort of home with the ease of a hotel stay.

• Contest Presenters will also receive

  • Closest to the pin

  • Women and men's long drive 10x10

  • Vendor spot signage at the hole

  • 2 golf foursome in the tournament

$2,500 Refresh Presenters

This sponsorship level will help cover the cost of birthing tubs in each suite. These tubs will provide natural pain relief and relaxation during labor. They are uniquely designed for comfort and safety during birth.

Refresh Presenters will also receive

• Co-branded waters bottles with their logo for all golfers

• Prominent placement on sponsor signage

• 1 golf foursome in the tournament

$500 Hole Sponsor
This sponsorship level includes one golf ticket and signage at one of the course holes.

Sponsors, please keep the following dates in mind:
- Completed participation form is due by June 30
- All payments are due by July 15

Please make the check out to “Resist”, add “Neighborhood Birth Center” in the memo, and mail to:
Resist
PO Box 301240
Boston, MA 02130

Any questions, please reach out to alison@neighborhoodbirthcenter.org.

When you think of locations that are important for taking care of residents in Boston’s Black communities, what place or places come to mind? Join us for a panel conversation on Black Boston Stories: Taking Care, featuring NBC’s Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie. 

On Thursday, June 15 at 6:00pm at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library, three Boston residents will reflect on taking care in and of Boston’s Black communities and lead a wider conversation with participants. Food will be served starting at 5:30pm.  Register here!

Meet the panelists:

Apolo Cátala, Farm Manager of OASIS on Ballou. Apolo Cátala is an alum of Food Solutions New England Network Leadership Institute, Urban Farming Institute and Trustees of Reservation Master Gardener training programs and a recipient of the Urban Farming Institute 2019 Community Cultivator Award. Apolo serves on the boards Boston Farms Community Land Trust, Tufts University Medical Center IRB as well as Stakeholder Panel Member of Tufts University CTSI, and Boston Public Health Commission Health Equity Advisor Board (2020-2021), and is also active with Boston Food Access Council, UFI, FSNE, and Dorchester Food Coop through which he champions local farming and sourcing as a means of promoting individual, community, and environmental health and equity across the urban, peri-urban, rural, regional and beyond food system continuum.

Reggie Jean, Executive Director of Haley House. Reggie Jean, a Boston native, most recently was the executive director of the YMCA of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He is also the co-founder and president of IWC Boston which assists individuals in financial literacy and education on wealth building. He holds a degree in economics from UMass-Amherst.

Jo-Anna Rorie, Consulting Midwife at Neighborhood Birth Center. Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie (she/her) has an extensive background in nurse-midwifery, public health, diversity workforce development, social justice advocacy and has held many well-known leadership roles in midwifery at the local, regional and national levels. She began her career in the late 1980’s when Massachusetts was faced with an infant mortality crisis, especially in the North Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury. In 1993, she served as the Associate Director of the Boston University Nurse-Midwifery Education Program (NMEP). She continues to do clinical practice as a postpartum rounder for the Nurse Midwifery practice at Boston Medical Center.

Organized as part of the Leventhal Map & Education Center’s ongoing exhibition, Building Blocks: Boston Stories from Urban Atlases.

Join us for an afternoon of connection and sweat at Down Under School of Yoga’s fundraiser for Neighborhood Birth Center! This class is all levels and will be co-taught by Stephen and Ashley. In-person and virtual tickets are available–grab them while you can! All proceeds go towards building NBC’s brick and mortar space. Huge thank you to the team at Down Under School of Yoga for their support! Can’t wait to see you there!

Please join us May 25 at the MFA for a special screening of the award-winning film Aftershock and a panel discussion featuring filmmaker director Tonya Lewis Lee. It’s never easy to sit with the painful truth of the crisis of maternal health in this country and this film brings us right into the grief and fight of Black families forever changed by the loss of Black mothers in childbirth. In this special opportunity at the MFA, we will watch Aftershock in community, and have space to process, grieve, and activate together. Thanks to The Wellness Collaborative for creating sacred space for this conversation. Register here!

Come boogie - on roller skates! - for reproductive justice at this Roller Skating Dance Party hosted by Boston Compass and Orbis Editions, with proceeds benefiting reproductive healthcare providers Planned Parenthood, Neighborhood Birth Center, and Women's Health Service.

Get your tickets here!

Performances by Viva Ruiz of TGFA and DJ Rilla Force. This is a launch event for the book Supervision: On Motherhood and Surveillance, ed. by artists Sophie Hamacher and Jessica Hankey, published by MIT Press and Orbis Editions.

This cold-winter air has us craving coziness and comfort with some hot chocolate, crafts, and stories from our community! Join us for our Midwives & Marshmallows event where we are making the most out of winter by mingling with our NBC community. All ages welcome! Join us and participate at one or all of our stations.

• Station 1: Children’s story time followed by an interactive musical circle with Annie Frannie

  • Join us in person or virtually for this station! 10:30 - 11:00: Haitian Creole Story Time, 11:15 - 11:45: Story Time (Language TBD), 12:00 - 1:30: English Story Time/Musical Circle

• Station 2: Share your dreams for NBC or your stories about birth, parenting or self-care with us in our Instagram Live recording station

• Station 3: Get crafty by making cards for birth workers in celebration of World Doula Day

• Station 4: Dip into some chocolate with our Hot Chocolate with DIY toppings and then join a chat circle to learn about NBC!

• Station 5: Learn about Roxbury History with a tour of the Thomas Dillway House, departing every 30 minutes from the lobby

The event is taking place in-person on March 18th. Children’s story time will have a hybrid model, please select a virtual ticket if you would like to join remotely. If you would like to participate in storytelling you can share your own story to your Instagram and tag @NeighborhoodBirthCenter!

The event is free and open for all ages! Please register in advance and you select enough tickets for you/your group so that we can plan accordingly! Donations are also welcome and the suggested donation amount is $5-10. Thank you!

Although contemporary artists have long explored maternity in their work, art on this subject has only recently received the attention it deserves. The topics of birth and motherhood are still met with derision, but some in the art world have begun breaking the taboos that surround these matters. This fearlessness has produced compelling and necessary commentaries on everything from the mundane-yet-heroic aspects of care work to the US’s high maternal mortality rate and the nation’s status as the only industrialized country to lack universal paid family leave.

In this program, hear from a scholar, a public health professional, and an artist as they discuss these issues, their enduring relevance, and the impact art and design can have on raising awareness about maternal and infant health.

Nashira Baril, cofounder, Boston’s Neighborhood Birth Center
Naitasia Hensey, attorney and copresident, Mass NOW
Kelly Marshall, artist
Amie Shao, principal, MASS Design Group
Moderated by Michelle Millar Fisher, Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts

Register here!

Join the Women, Gender, & Health Interdisciplinary Concentration for our annual International Women's Day Celebration! This year we will share in a discussion about the radical history of IWD, and its deep ties to issues of gender and reproductive justice with Professor Nancy Krieger, Chair of WGH, and featured speaker Nashira Baril, the founder of Boston's Neighborhood Birth Center. Lunch will be provided! Contact wgh@hsph.harvard.edu with any questions.

Register here!

Please join us for an important discussion with leaders in Reproductive Justice and Healthcare who are tackling racial health disparities both locally and nationally and creating models to support health equity.

Panelists will include: Nashira Baril (Neighborhood Birth Center), Lilly Marcelin (Resilient Sisterhood Project), and Marisa Pizii (Collective Power for Reproductive Justice). The conversation will be facilitated by Natanja Craig-Oquendo (Boston Women’s Fund).

Discussion will include how historical trauma reverberates across generations and public health strategies that advance justice and equity. Panelists will discuss ways in which funders can engage in this critical work.

Lack of access to safe, timely, affordable and respectful abortion care poses a risk to the physical, mental and social well-being of pregnant people across the country.

In Massachusetts and in other states, there are clear racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes. 

You have no doubt heard these facts before. We invite you to delve beyond the headlines by exploring the many ways that reproductive autonomy and maternal health impact not only people's lives but entire communities and overall child well-being. We will have the privilege of being joined by Jenny Ma of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Rebecca Hart Holder of Reproductive Equity Now, Lilly Marcelin of the Resilient Sisterhood Project, and Nashira Baril of the Neighborhood Birth Center. 

This interactive conversation will focus on education, policy and advocacy as key levers for change, and will feature the voices and expertise of partners who bring national, state, local and grassroots perspectives.  

Register here.

Join us for "In Community We Trust", a digital event featuring new works by J.C. Pankratz, Jonathan Norton, and Eliana Pipes.

This January, the Company One Surge Lab writers bring you In Community We Trust —  an evening of short plays on the theme of wellbeing and community health, explored through a lens of hope and action. The stories — funny, incisive, and full of heart — will be presented alongside conversations with Boston-area community partners and activists, and include action steps that attendees can take to help build a Better Future together.

Join Company One's digital watch party on Thursday, January 26 at 7pm ET to watch the plays in community and take action with us!

"The Waiting Room" by Eliana Pipes, directed by Ciera-Sadé Wade, featuring Elle Borders, stage managed by Afrikah Selah, followed by a conversation with Nashira Baril, Project Director at Neighborhood Birth Center

A woman approaches parenthood for the first time, after growing up as a translator for her refugee parents. As she reflects on the lessons learned and the impact of medical professionals whom she worked with, she wonders what will her child learn?

12:45 pm - 2:00 pm - Roundtable Discussion: Dimensions of the Post-Dobbs Environment.

This roundtable will be a conversation among reproductive justice advocates, organizations, researchers, and legal scholars about a range of challenges to and strategies for securing health justice and reproductive justice post-Dobbs. Topics will include maternal mortality, access to prenatal care, contraception, the role of conscience and religious liberty objections to reproductive health care.

Facilitator: Aziza Ahmed, BU School of Law

Panelists:

• Judy Norsigian, Our Bodies Ourselves Today

• Diana Namumbejja Abwoye, Lowell Community Health Center

• Kimberly Mutcherson, Dean, Rutgers Law

• Nashira Baril, Neighborhood Birth Center

• Maya Manian, American University Washington College of Law

• Elizabeth Sepper, University of Texas at Austin School of Law

• Renee Landers, MA Planned Parenthood, Suffolk Law

Register here.

For more about the conference, see below.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of exploring the legacy and future of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The constitutional, political, and policy landscape is changing by the day, with major implications for law, medicine, and public health. This symposium marks what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe and will evaluate various dimensions of reproductive justice as it existed until Dobbs and into the next 50 years. The symposium has a multidisciplinary approach, which will include attention to law, history, social movements, health equity, and reproductive health and justice, including the critical role of advocates in Boston and the Northeast region. A related issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics will be coedited by Professors Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, and Linda McClain, to be published in the fall of 2023. 

This symposium will occur Thursday, January 26, 2023 at BU School of Law and is cosponsored by BU Law and BU School of Public Health, and is part of BU Law’s commemoration of its 150th anniversary (For those interested in coming to Boston, our timing coincides with “The Age of Roe” conference at Harvard Radcliffe on Friday, January 27th.)

We will offer this symposium in person, and virtually. Please register for zoom information.

This symposium is an inaugural event for BU Law’s new program in reproductive justice, which will launch officially in fall 2023.

For questions about registration, please contact Elizabeth Clancey at mackelle@bu.edu. For questions about the conference or JLME, please contact Professors Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, or Linda McClain.

Join us for a restorative yoga session in support of Neighborhood Birth Center!

What: Restore and Flow Yoga Class taught by Alex Bauermeister

Where: JP Centre Yoga, 670 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain

When: Saturday, January 22nd 1-2 pm followed by Q&A with NBC Board Members & Staff

Who: Everybody! This class is for all levels and offers options to meet everyone's needs.

How: This is a hybrid class - there are limited in-person spots and plenty of spots to join via Zoom! Virtual attendees will also have access to the recording for 48 hours after the session.

Purchase your ticket here!

More About Flow and Restore

Mindful slow flow meets restorative yoga in this nourishing class. The first half of the class explores meditative movement through postures to help unravel embodied stress and tension. The second half of class winds down with postures that facilitate rest and stillness.

As with any class, students are encouraged to adapt the pacing and postures to their own practice in pursuit of cultivating ease and relaxation, whether that means interpreting the teacher’s guidance with more vigor or more gentleness.

After the session, Neighborhood Birth Center will hold a 30-minute Q & A session with board members and staff.

More About Alex Bauermeister

Alex specializes in therapeutic yoga for nervous system regulation and relief from the mind-body manifestations of stress and trauma. She has over 1000 hours of training as a yoga teacher (Kripalu), yoga therapist (Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy), and facilitator (Interaction Institute for Social Change), and is currently pursuing a Master of Social Work degree. Alex's work life encompasses many dimensions, including yoga therapy for individuals and groups, training facilitation in trauma-informed yoga, yoga therapy, and restorative yoga, as well as trauma-informed social justice work with a focus on organizational and systems change. Alex is passionate about helping yoga spaces become more inclusive, welcoming, and empowering for all. In addition to being a yoga teacher, Alex is also a local doula.

What You Can Expect From Alex's Class

Often described as a "choose your own adventure" kind of class, Alex's teaching style incorporates choice so that you can meet your body, energy, and nervous system where you're at. She welcomes you to come as you are, and creates space for mental and emotional unwinding alongside the physical and energetic nourishment of yoga asana. Alex's instruction and cues are less focused on physical alignment in order to leave space for self-reflection and exploring your relationship to your body and self, to create alignment in your way of being in the world.

Join us for a conversation exploring how the design of reproductive objects, systems, and policies affects all of our lives. Panelists include our director Nashira Baril; Christy Turlington Burns, internationally recognized icon and founder of Every Mother Counts; Jennie Joseph, one of the world’s most respected midwives and authorities on women’s health; and Gabriella Nelson, associate director of policy, Maternity Care Coalition Philadelphia. Michelle Millar Fisher, co-curator of Designing Motherhood will moderate this panel.

Registration information will be available soon.