Jamaa Birth Village means family in the African language of Swahili. Come and go with me, on the humble beginnings and birthing of a village.

jamaa adopt a room renovations (1)

After raising enough funds to purchase our new home, we closed the deal!

Renovations began, more donations poured in to pay the contractors, community members came out to help clean, paint and renovate our new 4,000 sq ft facility. The tear down began, we partnered with Cannon Designs who provided free architecture services, interior design support and painting with a team of their members volunteering their time. The lead person Elise Novak was such a key component in ensuring that our new location turned out to be beautiful and state of the art for our community.

In May 2020, in the height of the pandemic, we were ready to launch our new clinic, except we needed furniture, medical equipment and interior necessities.

The Adopt a Room Campaign

So, in the middle of the night, another vision came, and thus our “Adopt a Room Campaign” was born. We had 2-weeks to have all 13-rooms at our new location adopted and fully funded, so that we could purchase everything we needed for a Juneteenth open date.

In just 6-days, our capital campaign exceeded it’s original goal! And while we were out working on the building, we received a special visit from Dr. Blum, the previous owner. He was so overjoyed with the progress we’d made and gave us his blessings as we prepared to open. He himself used to walk these halls daily, caring for members of our community, and in a sense, I felt he was passing me the provider baton to prepare to do the same. 

Adopt a Room Campaign jamaa
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Okunsola M. Amadou

Okunsola M. Amadou, a Fulani-American Midwife, is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Jamaa Birth Village. Previously known as "Tru", Okunsola is an initiated Olokun and Egbe Priestess in the Isese religion, where she is currently studying as an Iyalorisha. During Okunsolas rites of passage, she received her traditional face markings, representing her nobility and position of royalty in her lineage.

She founded Jamaa Birth Village in 2015, in her Ferguson, MO living room, starting the St. Louis Black Doula movement and growing the St. Louis Black Doula community from 5 to 200+ in 5-years through her Community Doula Training, the city's first Black written, created and taught community-based doula training. In 2018, Okunsola created the St. Louis Doulas of Color Collective, which now boasts a thriving membership of 40+ Black Doulas and is home to Missouri’s first BIPOC Doula directory.

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