On the last day of her monthslong retreat in Ghana, before returning home to Ferguson, Okunsola Amadou stood on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, singing a song to Yemoja, the water spirit of the Yoruba religion.
“It was there, as I finished singing the song that I sang every morning, that I received a vision,” she said. “To not just become a midwife, not just be a private practice home birth midwife, but to build a birthing village.”
That vision led Amadou in 2015 to found Jamaa Birth Village in Ferguson. What started as informal gatherings of prospective parents and doulas-in-training has become just what Amadou had hoped for— a community focused on healthy parents and babies. And her village? It expanded in 2020 with the opening of the 4,000-square-foot Jamaa Equal Access Midwifery Clinic.
“I founded Jamaa Birth Village out of my home,” she said in an interview with St. Louis on the Air’s Danny Wicentowski. “I started providing midwifery care as a student under my preceptors in my living room for six months. And when we got our first brick-and-mortar [location], it was in Ferguson. … It was a seed, and we've grown it and sustained it, and it will always be our home.”
On this edition of St. Louis on the Air, Amadou shared her unlikely life story, from a childhood in Texas and Ferguson, to becoming a water priestess in Ghana, to returning to Ferguson just in time to experience the uprising over Michael Brown’s killing in 2014. She is also featured in a recent episode of STLPR’s “We Live Here” podcast that tackles the tough choices Black parents are making when it comes to schools.
To hear more about Okunsola Amadou’s journey, including the song she sang to Yemoja, and her experiences during the 2014 Ferguson Uprising, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Ulaa Kuziez, Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
