By: Sequoia Ragland
My experience as an intern for Sista Midwife Productions has been extremely impactful. I started this semester with a newly discovered passion for reproductive health and reproductive justice and was extremely excited for the opportunity to work with Ms. Nicole Deggins, a nurse, community worker, and birth advocacy expert. I had no idea how much I would learn. I was quickly immersed in Ms. Deggins’s world, where I became familiar with a vast array of prenatal education sources, reproductive health legislation, and how community outreach can help mitigate the adverse birthing experiences of Black mothers and mothers of color at the state and levels. 
Throughout the semester I worked closely with Ms. Deggins on the Birth Story Project. The Birth Story Project aims to collect the stories of women who have given birth in the state of Louisiana to inform Sista Midwife Productions’ advocacy for better birthing outcomes. This is done through monthly sharing circles and an online survey. For the Birth Story Project to be successful, we need to reach as many mothers throughout Louisiana as possible, including all races, ethnicities, and classes. The most effective way to do so is through social media. Throughout the spring I established a new look for the Birth Story Project’s Instagram page and doubled the page’s Instagram followers. This expanded our reach across the state and effectively increased our survey responses. I created fliers for the monthly sharing circles and the survey, and also created graphics that ranged from recruiting birth workers to enlist in the Midwife/Doula directory to encouraging people to train with Sista Midwife Productions. I found this to be the most rewarding part of the internship as I learned more about the power of social media and the ability to use social platforms to advocate for others. As we move into the summer, I will be working with Ms. Deggins to host virtual sharing circles for the Birth Story Project, in addition to translating the survey into multiple languages (including Vietnamese and Spanish) to collect even more stories. I also really enjoyed working on the Art of Birthing, which is a creative community birthing event that is set to be held this September. I am excited to continue working with Sista Midwife Productions this remotely this summer and in the upcoming fall, and I am so grateful for all that I have learned through my internship thus far.