Happy New Year from our New Executive Director

Peace Our Justice community,

I am honored and excited to announce my transition from Vision Realization Advisor to the role of Executive Director of Our Justice. This is an incredible opportunity that speaks to my passions, skillset, and guiding principle; that we all deserve full bodily autonomy and a world free from reproductive oppression.

Over the last decade, I have dedicated my personal and professional talents toward making reproductive justice a reality. It’s a journey that I began at Whole Woman’s Health, an independent abortion clinic, as a phone counselor. I worked my way up to call center manager leading a team who provided compassionate care and education for folks seeking to access abortions across the nation. In 2017 I co-founded and ran Trust Collective for 3 years, a collective uplifting women and femmes of color to be engaged in reproductive justice storytelling. In 2019 I transitioned to the Vision Realization Advisor for Our Justice, and since then I have had the opportunity to deepen my holistic leadership and skill building, through the National Network of Abortion Funds Movement Makers Fellows Program.

Driven by my love and commitment to serve folks who are systematically excluded, I am eager to build upon the momentum that Our Justice has created over the last few years with the Plan B delivery program, our abortion lodging program and the UnRestrict MN campaign. As the new Executive Director, I pledge to keep you informed of our growth as I work toward achieving our priorities for 2022 — including updates about our litigation, the continued development of our staff and Board of Directors, and the commitment to solidify funding to enhance programmatic viability and expansion.

There is no denying that these last few years have been uniquely challenging for all of us, especially for those who face legal and economic barriers to accessing essential healthcare, including abortion care. For many people, these attacks on bodily autonomy are unprecedented, however for the majority of people who look like me, institutional oppression has been the norm- these barriers to care are not new, they just look different.

Nonetheless, our dedicated staff continues to exceed expectations, finding innovative ways to support our grantees and communities through legal attacks and impacts of the pandemic. Thanks to your generosity, our team has improved our intake systems to better support our grantees and the influx of out-of-state grantees that we may be seeing with the potential fall of Roe. Not only that, our team has been instrumental in the litigation to reaffirm and expand Minnesota’s protections for access to abortion care. Your support has never been more critical to fulfilling our mission. I am confident that with you by our side Our Justice will continue to make Reproductive Justice feel more irresistible, and shift resources so that our communities have the power to make sexual and reproductive health decisions with self-determination.

Thank you again for your support and Happy New Year! 

Sincerely,

Shayla Walker, Executive Director

What we do is more important than what we say or what we say we believe. - bell hooks