Motor City Mobile Wellness
Please join us in bringing Motor City Mobile Wellness directly to people, family and communities in Detroit, who deserve compassionate healing support and safer responses.
Leader
Rachel Thompson
Location
Mobile Holistic Healing Space Detroit, MI 48221
About the project
In June 2020 Rachel and Yoda.Kai lost their six month old daughter, Amaru. After calling an ambulance for help, instead of being met with empathy and gentle care, Rachel was greeted by multiple police officers who arrived at her door with the EMT’s. They declared her home “a crime scene,” detained, and interrogated the family until abuse was ruled out. Directly following this traumatic experience, her Indigenous neighbors lit a funeral fire in her backyard in Southwest Detroit. Her family was assisted and held by the fire keepers, community healers, therapists, death doulas, Reiki practitioners, tarot readers, musicians, herbalists, and dear friends who streamed in and out of the home funeral during the following four days. It was at this sacred funeral fire where the idea of a collaborative mobile healing unit that can respond to crisis, outside of law enforcement, was born. Amaru’s family experienced first hand how compassionate community care and expertise offer a safer alternative in de-escalating already tense situations.
With Amaru in our hearts, Radical Well-Being Center (via the 501c3 RWBC Healthcare Access Fund) and Healing by Choice! started dreaming together. With the onset of the pandemic, we knew it was time to make mobile healing a reality. Please join us in bringing Motor City Mobile Wellness directly to people, family and communities in Detroit, who deserve compassionate support and safer responses.
Provide your feedback on the project here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CqGnpt4-zGDfdBhOVpouJEcZEooYExi0muDZxuub1pQ/edit
The Steps
- Strategic Planning (Summer/Fall 2021)
- Solidify marketing suite (October 2021)
- Continue community survey collection (Ongoing)
- Secure Vehicle (Winter 2021)
- Pop-up event for community engagement and relationship building (December 2021)
Why we‘re doing it
- Medical models often fail marginalized communities
- There is distrust of western medicine and desire for alternatives
- Holistic wellness can be inaccessible due to distance, travel barriers, cost-prohibitive services, and practitioners who do not have access to dedicated spaces for healing work
- Create an alternative response network that does not traumatize communities or enforce punitive methods.
Provide your feedback on the project here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CqGnpt4-zGDfdBhOVpouJEcZEooYExi0muDZxuub1pQ/edit