BMH In nola
Club Spotlight
Nandipha DuBois
Student Project Director
This summer, Nandipha “Nandi” DuBois, a senior Public Health major, went abroad to London and Birmingham, U.K. There, she collaborated with NHS midwives and health leaders to advocate for culturally responsive Black maternal healthcare. Under the guidance of midwife and nurse Ms. Elsie Gayle, Nandi piloted her Mellon Mays research project exploring African Diasporic Dance as a tool for healing and empowerment. From intimate conversations with healthcare providers on continuity of care to immersive movement workshops with practitioners Sandra Golding and Luanda Pua, she discovered powerful ways to merge artistry, culture, and medicine.
One of the most important lessons Nandi learned abroad is the urgency of addressing systemic inequities in Black maternal health. Ms. Elsie’s decades of advocacy emphasize that holistic, culturally aware approaches are not just beneficial; they are essential. The womb is everyone’s first environment, and the birthing experience will have lifelong impacts on individuals. Ms. Elsie talks about how maternal care impacts the journey “from womb to tomb.” Nandi saw firsthand how dance and storytelling create safe spaces for Black women to reclaim their narratives, foster trust in healthcare settings, and heal from generational trauma. Through her work, she gained a deeper understanding of how these cultural practices can be integrated into public health models worldwide, demonstrating that wellness must include both medical and cultural expertise.
Nandi’s journey calls us to reimagine healthcare as a space where culture, artistry, and advocacy meet. Her work reminds us that equity in maternal care begins with honoring the voices and traditions of the communities served. Whether you’re a student, health professional, or artist, there is room to join this movement, learn, volunteer, advocate, and uplift holistic approaches to care. Together, we can ensure that every Black mother receives the dignity, support, and healing they deservesare transforms outcomes and heals communities.
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As students, staff, and faculty at Xavier University of Louisiana, we have all crossed paths and bonded on the shared interest in advocating for black maternal health. We’ve sat together and brainstormed how we can use our specific and unique set of skills to collaborate on a project. Through our personal stories, experiences, skills, goals, and aspirations, we have created a dashboard to help spread awareness on black maternal health globally. We’ve committed to working with international maternal health professionals to help create and gather data specifically on black women’s mortality rates during birth. As the next generation of Black maternal health professionals, we must work together to fight the injustices we face within the healthcare system. We work from different academic backgrounds that allow for interdisciplinary collaboration and solutions to address the black maternal health disparities. We recognize that black maternal health is not solely in the best interest of black mothers, but in the best interest of everyone’s health. By bettering the health care system for black women and children, we are allowing all people to be brought into the world free of trauma. The longer we allow our mothers to experience traumatic and fatal births, the more at risk the next generations are susceptible to sharing these same fates.