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About Uzazi Village

Advancing Maternal Health in Kansas City

Who We Are

Uzazi Village is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization working to improve maternal health in Kansas City. We focus on the needs, voices, and experiences of Black and Brown families. Our work is grounded in the belief that every family deserves respectful care, cultural understanding, and healthy outcomes during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period.

We exist to eliminate the unfair health disparities that affect Black and Brown communities. We do this through education, advocacy, and community‑based support that helps families thrive.

Learn More About the Crisis

Our Mission

Our mission is to improve maternal health in Kansas City by supporting Black and Brown families.

We do this through:

  • Culturally aligned care
  • Education
  • Advocacy

We work to remove barriers and replace them with community‑driven solutions that honor culture, dignity, and choice.

Our Vision

We envision a world where every family, especially Black and Brown ones, has a safe and supported pregnancy and birth experience. We focus on Black and Brown families because they are most affected by maternal health inequities.

Our goal is simple: Every family has access to respectful, culturally relevant care.

Our Approach to
Maternal Health in Kansas City

Uzazi Village takes a holistic, community‑centered approach to improving maternal health in Kansas City. Our work includes:

Culturally Aligned Perinatal Support

We train and support doulas who reflect the communities they serve. This helps families feel understood, confident, and supported.

Education & Training

We offer workshops, classes, and professional development opportunities focused on:

  • Black maternal health
  • Reproductive justice
  • Culturally-centered care practices.

Advocacy & Systems Change

We push for policies and practices that improve maternal health in Kansas City and ensure equitable care.

Community Programs & Resources

We provide support from pregnancy to postpartum care. Our programs and services strengthen families and reduce health disparities.

Where It Began

The four original founders of Uzazi Village, Hakima Tafunzi Payne, Mariah Chrans, Rebecca Liberty, and Tash Reed, had their first community meeting on December 9th, 2011, at the Kansas City Health Department. Community members were invited to share what their vision was regarding community-based maternity care. Uzazi Village was officially founded in May of 2012.

With the support of our community, we continue to dedicate our time to decreasing maternal and infant health inequities among Black and Brown communities.

Our Values

Integrity

Integrity

We stay true to our values and take responsibility for ourselves and our community. We speak and act with honesty, openness, and courage. We show up as our real selves because we believe our community deserves our very best in all we do.

Transformative Justice

Transformative Justice

Our justice in healthcare is long overdue. We cannot depend on a system that was designed to either ignore us or discount us. We will settle for neither. We will create our own just systems while we fight to dismantle unjust ones.

Black Liberation

Black Liberation

We work hard to create safe, culturally aligned spaces for our clients, staff, and community members. We value freedom from racism and white supremacy in clinical care and health policy and offer our clients freedom of choice.

“For us, by us” is our rallying cry for liberation.

Healing

Healing

Healing helps us look honestly at the harms that have happened to Black and Brown people in the past and the harms that still happen today. We believe you can’t fix a problem unless you address it. But we also want to focus on self-healing.

We will uplift both self-care and community care, and we will work hard to live balanced, healthy lives in every part of our experience.

Cultural Congruency

Cultural Congruency

For too long, others have tried to define our culture as less than or not good enough. We are survivors of centuries of harm, and we are saying “NO MORE.” We will tell our own stories and decide for ourselves who we are. We will build care models that fit our lives and lift up our health and well-being.

We Believe That:

Community engagement is essential to creating positive, long-term and sustainable change in family health.
Respecting the dignity of every individual is essential to building a healthy and supportive community.
Healthcare is an essential human right that should be accessible and affordable for every community member.
Empowerment comes with personal ownership of family health outcomes, supported by education and community.