Fighting drug addiction and mental health stigmas in Minn’s. Somali community
A folding table. A bag full of clean socks. Toothbrushes. A first-aid kit containing Narcan and cardamom-infused Somali tea. Every Friday night, Abdirahman Mukhtar brings these supplies to a plaza next to the Cedar Cultural Center in Minnesota, where he is on a quest to help his community fight drug addiction and mental illness. A 43-year-old father of five, Mukhtar founded Daryeel Youth, a newly formed non-profit that helps Somali-Americans and other East African youth on the street.Sahan Journal has more on Mukhtar’s work to reduce Minnesota’s increasingly alarming rates of fatal opioid overdoses →
Reducing food insecurity among New York’s vulnerable populations
Eligible immigrants in New York can benefit from the state’s various food benefits programs. Of the four programs recently covered by Documented, some target specific populations like people with disabilities and expecting mothers. For example, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, also known as SNAP, provides low- and moderate-income people, including working families and seniors with preloaded debit cards to shop for food. WIC, which stands for Women, Infants and Children, provides nutritional assistance to pregnant women, new mothers, and children under five years old who are at risk of malnutrition.Get more information about other programs, eligibility requirements and links to apply →
Reflections on reproductive justice and the “Captive Maternal”
As the daughter of a Black teenage mother, Breya M. Johnson, an abolitionist and reproductive justice organizer, reminds us that during the Clinton Administration in 1994, an informal Black Women's Caucus emerged that shaped our nation's current reproductive justice system. That gathering helped define reproductive justice as "the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities." Using American philosopher Joy James' "captive maternal" theory, Johnson argues that Black women are the most vulnerable to violence and captivity from the state.Read more from Scalawag →
Meet the Game Changers
Highlighting the innovators transforming health outcomes in our communities
In honor of Black Maternal Health Week, Dr. Samantha F. Butts, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Penn State Health and Penn State College of Medicine, joins
WURD's The Source
to discuss health disparities among Black American women