As I sit here in this lovely hotel lobby during the 2012 City Match conference in beautiful San Antonio, and listen to some of the greatest minds in US Maternal Child Health, and rub elbows with the biggest of the bigwigs from the CDC, the NIH, and the US Health and Human Services, it suddenly occurs to me, I need not attend any more sessions, the answers aren't here. Not that I have not heard some amazing stuff and met some talented amazing people- all that is true. However, the answers I seek can't come from federal bureaus, health department policy wonks, or the latest data sets. Let me explain.
In a moment of stunning clarity, it came to me. I am the answer. What I do within Uzazi Village offers up the greatest hope for my community. I must find a way and I must do it without government or philanthropic grants (no one will give me money to save Black babies), without 'strategic partners', even without 'stakeholder buy-in'. I must do it by grassroots organization, community will and bulldog tenacity. I am the only one that can do it. These outsiders with their graphs and charts don't know ANYTHING about my community. Neither do they care to learn. I see no evidence that anyone is concerned with restructuring rascist institutions, the very thing that could facilitate the most change. They only want to impose their own agendas and see their own outcomes. I am throwing off this colonialist model and doing my own thing.
The cavalry ain't coming... so I guess its up to me.
