Grant-making Panel

Ditra Edwards

Ditra Edwards is the Co-founder and Director for SISTA FIRE. She is a Black woman born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, with over 20 years of experience working on racial and economic justice issues. The theme that runs through all of her work is making connections between people, their values and vision, and the change they want to bring about.  Because of this, she believes in a people-centered approach to changing structural conditions and building community power.

In 2017, Ditra won the Rhode Island Foundation Innovation Fellowship to start SISTA Fire. SISTA Fire stems from a vision of building a movement for social, political, and economic transformation that centers the leadership of womyn of color in Rhode Island. In addition to her work with SISTA FIRE RI, Ditra provides support to grassroots organizations, alliances, and networks through strategy development, capacity building, training, and technical assistance.

Njera Keith

Njera Keith is a Diaspora oriented, Black organizer whose focus is the development of movement philosophy and infrastructure that supports cohesion and unity in revolutionary struggle. She is the Founder and Executive Coordinator of Black Sovereign Nation, a pro-Black, autonomy-focused, and community-centered organization based in Austin, Texas. She is also the co-founder of 400+1, the world’s first Black cooperative federation, a liberatory blueprint, and a framework for dramatic economic and political shifts in global Black life.

Nedia Morsy

Nedia Morsy is an organizer at Make the Road New Jersey. At Make the Road New Jersey, Nedia is responsible for expanding educational opportunities for first-generation and immigrant youth in greater Union County, New Jersey and youth leadership development.

Sakina O’Uhuru

Sakina O’Uhuru, CNM MS has been practicing the art of Midwifery for 21 years and has provided maternal-child health care in underserved areas for 32 years. In 2002, she founded her private practice, Gentle Spirit Home Birth Midwifery Services where she offers comprehensive women’s health care services. Gentle Spirit Birth is a private practice independently owned and operated with office locations in New York and New Jersey.

In 2013, out of the need to address the staggering rates of maternal and infant mortality in the African American Community, Ms. O’Uhuru founded her non-profit, A Woman’s Way. The mission of A Woman’s Way is aimed at providing community-based educational forums that focus on reducing the risk for African American women during pregnancy labor and birth.