ABOUT ITOA

Overview

In the Tradition of Our Ancestors, or ITOA, is about entrusting our bodies and ancestral knowledge to provide a holistic, culturally-responsive approach to healthy living, birthing, and community building.

ITOA Médsinn was born Fall 2020 as a holistic wellness store. On their grandmother’s dining room table, our Founder, Kiersten T. “Gillette” Gillette-Pierce, mixed up tea blends, made yoni steam blends, and natural skin care products for online purchase. Each product had a backstory and each product was rooted in the recipes and teachings of their ancestors and elders–-be it recipes they earned from their Creole ancestors and elders, healing herbs they learned about while working in rural Togo and Ethiopia, or things they had picked up along their spiritual journey. Above all, she wanted to honor the knowledge and work of our ancestors of African and Indigenous American origins. Simultaneously, Gillette formed ITOA Coalition, formerly known as One Diaspora Coalition, a community-based organization working to create transnational solutions to oppression and injustices faced by communities of African descent.

While on her journey to clinical medicine, she knew all too well the dismal past and present of birthing and reproduction in this country for Black birthing people and knew that ITOA needed to become so much more than just an online wellness store. Over the next three years, Gillette worked to gain more Indigenous knowledge, more evidence on birth and sexual and reproductive health outcomes, and a better understanding of the unique challenges Black birthing people face in accessing culturally-responsive, equitable obstetrical and gynecological health care.

In 2023, Gillette decided to take a more holistic approach to honoring the ancestral birth, sexual and reproductive health knowledge that exists as well as work to reclaim this work and lay the foundation for Black-led, transnational pregnancy-related and sexual and reproductive health care that merges ancestral knowledge, spiritual technologies, and herbal medicines with clinical medicine. As such, ITOA Movement was established in 2023 as one entity within that larger effort to honor and preserve the traditions of our ancestors, raise political consciousness, and meet the unique needs of Black birthing persons and their communities. One Diaspora Coalition was restructured as a sibling organization to ITOA Movement to take on transnational solidarity work and coalition building—it is now known as ITOA Coalition.

ITOA Birth and Holistic Wellness Center, Louisiana’s first Black-owned, gender-affirming birth center is coming soon! ITOA Birth & Holistic Wellness center will revolutionize maternal and infant healthcare through its integrated approach to reproductive and sexual health services, birth work and pregnancy-related care. Our mission is to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to expectant parents while actively working towards improving birth outcomes and providing holistic care to our surrounding communities to address SRHRJ issues across the lifecourse. As we work to get our doors open, please consider donation here.

MSGHW Enterprises, a holding company, owns ITOA Médsinn, ITOA Movement, ITOA Coalition, and ITOA Birth & Holistic Wellness Center.

Meet the Founder, Gillette

Kiersten “Gillette” TâLéigh Ifákẹ́mi Ọláyínká Adéọlá Gillette-Pierce (she/they) is the Founder of In the Tradition of Our Ancestors. Viewing herself as a true servant to the people of the African Diaspora, she has worked and continues to work arduously to grow into her purpose as a healer. Gillette holds a master’s degree from the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Maternal, Fetal, and Newborn Health. She also has a bachelor’s of science in Public Health and Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies (WGSS) from American University. Gillette is currently working to complete the People’s Medicine School program to further their herbal medicine work; and, finishing up a blockchain management micro degree program at Gritnova Global Campus. Gillette is also a recipient of the 2023 40 Under 40 Public Health Catalyst Award from the Boston Congress of Public Health.

Having worked internationally in Togo, West Africa and Ethiopia, Gillette uses her knowledge, experiences, and connections to the people and land to build a sustainable bridge for Black folks in Africa, the West Indies, Latin America, Melanesia and the US to connect, collaborate, and liberate—as we are stronger together. Through their endeavors Gillette created ITOA to help start these transnational, inter-diasporic conversations, research, and knowledge-sharing. Her dream is that we will no longer see western medicine, economics, and humanitarian aid as our sole sources of advancement, but instead return to that which comes from us—the traditions of our ancestors. It is through this return that Gillette believes we will find true health, wealth and sustainability.