Black Women for Wellness Presents

POWER SHIFT 2012

March 7-9, 2012

Conference Description

POWER SHIFT: Gathering Our Forces, Kicking Up Sand, Lifting Our Fists, Protecting Our Wombs is presented by Black Women for Wellness. An empowering event held over two days in March 2012, the conference will provide a dedicated space to address reproductive justice issues affecting Black and African American women and girls. Why PowerShift?  PowerShift encourages mobilization within our communities and provides women and girls with the tools and resource needed to enact change.

Black Women for Wellness (BWW) convenes conferences to provide a forum and space for dialogue on health issues affecting our communities and as a roundtable for health care professionals, advocates, grassroots and frontline leadership to  share knowledge and insights into current reproductive justice issues;  Power Shift encourages leadership development and communication across generations  and reproductive health sectors providing tools and resource sharing that supports advocacy and policy eliminating health disparity. Participants will learn skills to increase effective community organizing surrounding reproductive justice issues and policies, leave better equipped to educate our communities and act as advocates in administration and legislative arenas. Moreover, PowerShift 2011speakers, presenters, participants and volunteers will leave with  a deeper understanding of what reproductive justice is and what it means for Black women and girls.

Conference Program

Keynote Sessions

Inspirational Keynote speakers will set the tone, inform and inspire participants at the 2012 PowerShift conference. The conference will begin by looking at the Institute Of Medicine’s (IOM) recommendations that were adopted by Health Human Services (HHS) for implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  How to mobilize our community and how to combat vicious attacks while integrating women’s health into civil rights and social justice movements.    Furthermore, our conference keynotes and speakers will take an in depth look at media, images, relationships and strategies to “kick up sand” on behalf of Black and African American women & girls.

About Black Women for Wellness

Black Women for Wellness is a Los Angeles based non-profit 501(c)(3) community-based organization. For more than 10 years the organization has been committed to healing, educating, inspiring, and supporting Black women to enhance and improve our health and well-being. Black Women for Wellness defines good health as more than mere absence of disease, but the ability to grow, to soar, to use our strength and power as women to the fullest extent in the pursuit of healthy lives, families and communities. Power Shift will be the 12th annual large scale conference convening, organized by Black Women for Wellness
Each year Black Women for Wellness (BWW) holds an annual conference to provide an open forum and space for Black and African American women to dialogue.  In these conferences, women learn about reproductive justice and leave empowered to better educate our communities about what reproductive justice means for us and our right to live the life that we choose. This year’s objective is MOBILIZATION.  Currently, black women’s health is repeatedly being attacked at both the national and state levels through short-sighted and mean-spirited budget proposals and negative political rhetoric.  In 2011, we witnessed the nationwide launching of a very dangerous and fictional anti-choice campaign that directly attacked African American mothers.  As the nation gears up for the 2012 Presidential election, it is imperative that communities of color are educated and equipped with advocacy skills for the fight not only to protect our reproductive rights, but to demand reproductive justice.