RJ By You is a micro-grant fund to grow reproductive justice activism in Missouri and South Dakota. Individuals and activist groups, can apply for up to $2500 to take action to bring attention to reproductive justice (“RJ”) or to create change in their communities. Eligible individuals and groups are invited to apply.
​
What is Reproductive Justice? It’s a term that Black women first created, and it means the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. You can learn more here.
​
Here are some of our ideas for potential activism - but we want to hear yours! So feel free to be big and bold with your plans! ​
​
The Right to Have Full Autonomy Over our Bodies:
-
A project to address the need of reproductive resources among immigrant women
-
A project to raise awareness of the current reproductive resources available for women who speak multilingual languages
-
Funding for paint and an artist-mentor’s time to create a mural on maternal mortality or safe, healthy families in a reservation community
-
Buying books for a reproductive justice-focused book club
-
Paying for on-campus activist or education events, for example covering food and drink for a series of movie nights about abortion and reproductive justice
-
Paying for travel costs for an indigenous activist to speak about an RJ issue of importance to young Native leaders
-
Paying for a pilot to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms (M/F and all genders) on a campus or through community groups that help the unhoused
The Right to Have or Not to Have Children
-
Paying for the design and printing of stickers with links to resources for obtaining a safe abortion, stickers that activists can place in bathroom stalls in bars, coffee shops and campus buildings
-
Funding abortion doula training for the founding members of a youth abortion doula collective
-
Paying for emergency contraception, pregnancy tests and stickers to assemble and distribute free emergency contraception kits
​
The Right to Birth and/or to Parent our Children with Dignity
-
A survey of community health access for conditions related to pregnancy or child rearing
-
Resources for Parents with a LGBT child
-
A project to address childcare shortage
-
Funding for paint and an artist-mentor’s time to create a mural on maternal mortality or safe, healthy families in a reservation community
​
The Right to Live and/or Raise a Family in a Safe and Sustainable Environment
-
A project to address or highlight a local food desert
-
An event or art installation to raise awareness about an environmental issue in the local community
-
A project or art to address the prison industrial systems effect on BIPOC communities
-
A project calling attention to water contamination in indigenous land and how what we consume affects our bodies
To apply, fill out this form by May 31, 2024. Our review committee, which is majority young activists of color, will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis, and we will select our second round of grantees by June 30, 2024.