THE DREAM
We dream of a future where health and healing are systematically equitable and accessible to all.
We prioritize individuals and organizations representing the communities most impacted by healthcare harms. Here, the most impacted by healthcare harms refers to individuals and communities dynamically situated at the intersections of Blackness, Indigeneity, Queerness, Transness, and Disability.
We represent a spectrum of practitioners, healthcare abolitionists, organizers, health communists, healers, HealthCrits, healing justice practitioners, liberatory policy wonks, visionaries, street medics, resisting healthcare professionals, birthworkers, and the like.
Our approach centers health and healing liberation, which does not abandon science; rather, it rejects racialized science and knowledge produced in the service of capitalism.
WE RELY ON THREE PRIMARY STRATEGIES
healthcare abolition, resource redistribution, including healthcare reparations, and cooperatively owned community-driven research.
Healthcare Abolition
is a strategy working to establish an independent system for health and healing uncoupled from racial capitalism.
Resource Redistribution
is a strategy working to address the fundamental causes of health inequities and acts as a bridge between the present systems of healthcare and the future health and healing landscape we are collectively building.
Community
Meaning-Making
is a strategy working to catalyze authentic and cooperatively owned community-driven research to recenter health and healing narratives and solutions.
Healthcare Reparations Cooperative
+ Health Liberation Labs
The existing Healthcare Reparations Cooperative is exploring a future collaboration with the Health Liberation Labs to transform the landscape of health and healing in Minnesota. This strategic restructuring would allow sustainability and nimbleness.
Healthcare Reparations Cooperative
Addressing Resources as Fundamental Health Drivers
Mission/Work
Cooperatively address resources as a fundamental driver of health and building power, dismantling oppressive healthcare structures, and expanding the liberatory possibilities for what health, healing, medicine, and public health can be.
Vision
We dream of a future where health and healing are systematically equitable and accessible to all.
Incorporation Structure
Multistakeholder Cooperative
Decision-Making Power/Governance
Board of Representatives (see Article 5. Board of the bylaws)
Assets
See Article 8. Finance of the bylaws
Funding
The Cooperative can solicit grant funding in accordance to the fiscal sponsor agreement. Other funding sources may include contracts and individual donations through the fiscal sponsor agreement.
Programs/Activities
Addressing resources as a fundamental health driver
– SouSou Fund
– The Reparations Project
– Resource Redistribution and Mutual Aid
Building power
– Healthcare Abolition Social Club
– Multistakeholder Cooperative model
– IP ownership
Health Liberation Labs
Using Praxis for Health Justice
Mission/Work
The Health Liberation Labs exist to eliminate medical racism and advance community-led health and healing narratives and solutions by building tools, strategies, and knowledge rooted in Black liberation, transforming health systems for all.
Vision
We dream of a world robust with care models rooted in joy, community power, healing, autonomy, and justice.
Incorporation Structure
501(c)(3)
Decision-Making Power/Governance
Board of Directors (see bylaws article X)
Chair, Secretary, Treasurer
Assets
NA
Funding
NA
Programs/Activities
Advance community-led health and healing narratives and solutions
– Narrative change
– Political Pedagogy
– Statewide Convenings
Eliminate medical racism
– Building and testing healthcare alternative models that uncouple racial capitalism from health
– Community-driven research
– Open source research and knowledge
The People
Alphabetical
she / they
Feven Ayana
The Reparations Project
Feven is passionate about health and healing within community work and believes it is the root of wellness for us all to live thriving and joyful lives. With a background in social work, healthcare, and creative work, she has found that one common thread of wellness for people is autonomy and joy. My hope is to continue to build on the work of many others before me to uplift and support the co-creation of an empowered and joyful landscape of wellness. They are committed to this work and hopes to see the liberatory impacts of our collective and imaginative work within their lifetime.
they / she
Heidi Benrud Nybroten
Board Member
Heidi’s caring humor and tenacity for realness is a welcome addition to the Cooperative’s advisory board. Heidi has worked with a dedicated commitment to the operational health of liberatory organizations in Minnesota and beyond.
she / her
Maria Bertrand
Meaning-Making Member
Maria joined membership in 2021 after her work on the Bereavement Fund Meaning-Making Project. Since then, Maria shows up with a goofy air that livens the dullest of meetings. Maria is a wiz at jumping into add hands to anything that needs doing. The Cooperative would not be what it is without her commitment to a future landscape of health and healing in Minnesota.
she / her
Dominique Earland, PhD
Meaning-Making Member
Dominique joined the membership in late 2020 after her work supporting Community-Informed COVID-19 Testing. Dominique’s epidemiological nerdiness knows no bounds and is here to talk about disparate disease prevalence any time. While earning her dual PhD|MD, she brings a critical provider lens to future transformation and health equity.
they / she
Kene Orakwue, MS, MPH
Meaning-Making Member
Kene joined membership in 2024 after their work on the Ecosystem Scan assessing the health of the Black Movement Ecosystem in Minnesota. They bring joy into any space they exist. Kene’s PhD research focuses on the role of the doula in Black maternal mortality. Kene continues to build knowledge, leading Meaning-Making projects that strive to uncouple racial capitalism from health.
they / she
Ingie Osman, MPH
The Reparations Project
Ingie joined membership in 2023 after her work on the Pregnant and Parenting Youth Pilot Project. Ingie is a brilliant researcher whose work has primarily focused on action-oriented health solutions in carceral spaces. Ingie is incredibly skilled at operationalizing massive ideas into sequenced and manageable components. A true skill needed in liberation… for real.
they / them
Hadija H. Kadogo, MS, MPH
Founding Director
Hadija is the Founding Director of the Healthcare Reparations Cooperative, a growing systems change organization that pushes for unifying, creative, and anti-oppressive approaches to a new world where community-care elicits a transformed landscape of health and healing. They are an arts-based researcher, a nerdy Kenyan-American queer, a human born and raised on the Southside. They are a multifaceted individual working towards liberation in health, and as a whole person in this work, they believe deeply in systems transformation and joy-filled movement work.
any pronouns
Katie Robinson, MS
Political Pedagogy Facilitator
Katie is a writer, facilitator, educator, scholar, interdisciplinary artist, wanderer, enchanted. Katie’s deep thinking brings profound love and care to the Political Pedagogy work of the Cooperative. Their PhD work is situated at the intersections of depth psychology, decoloniality, and police and prison abolition.
Mailing Address:
2429 Nicollet Avenue,
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Connect With Us:
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