Mission
The Grassroots Maternal and Child Health Initiative builds the capacity of individuals and organizations in marginalized communities to bring about systems change to improve maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes.
Vision
Mothers, infants, and families live in communities that foster their health, well-being and development.
Approach
The mission of the Grassroots Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Initiative is grounded in a human-rights based approach to MCH. We believe that system change work must be done in equitable partnership with community members. To this end, the initiative started its work by going into communities across Indiana with poor MCH outcomes and training and mentoring women with lived experiences in these communities to be Grassroots MCH Leaders. These women are trained and mentored to be community activists, developers and systems change agents. Together we all work to address the inequitable social and economic systems that lie at the heart of poor MCH outcomes.
We have trained 35 Grassroots MCH Leaders across ten counties since its inception in 2018. They are:
- 18 African American, 12 White, three Latina (bilingual English and Spanish), two Black immigrants (Niger, Guinea, Muslim, bilingual French and English)
- Diverse across many variables (faith, geography, income, education)
- 49% remain very active in the work. Of these, 76% are funded by other grants focused on the priority areas of the initiative, 20% help as needed, 31% have exited due to relocation or family/work issues.
