Preventing Harm, Promoting Healing,
Building Community
About Us
Ubuntu Village is a Black-led, multi-racial group made up of parents, young people, and community members. Our mission is to make New Orleans a safer, healthier, more equitable place to call home.
We support and build power with those most impacted by systemic racism, violence, and mass incarceration. Instead of replicating systems of oppression, “we keep us safe” by mediating conflicts in our neighborhoods, offering alternatives to prosecution and incarceration, and directly supporting families in the legal system. We prioritize healing and mutual aid to meet our community’s immediate needs, while building power for long-term racial and economic justice.
We know that true safety comes not from oppression and control, but from supportive communities where everyone is treated with humanity and has what they need to thrive. By taking care of each other, we’re creating the healthy village we all need and deserve.
The Ubuntu Approach
“[Ubuntu] speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong to the whole, to the community, to the tribe, to the nation, to the earth.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Ubuntu is a Zulu word that means “I am because we are.” It is a recognition that we are all deeply interconnected, and our well-being as individuals is directly tied to our well-being as a community.
This means that, as Fannie Lou Hamer said, “no one’s free until everybody’s free.” We work for Black liberation knowing that it will make all of us freer, safer, and healthier regardless of what we look like or where we come from. We center the leadership of Black people impacted by the criminal legal system and other forms of violence, while encouraging people of all races and backgrounds to play their role in building our collective village.
In the spirit of Ubuntu, we recognize the humanity of all people and approach our work together with empathy, generosity, mutual respect, and collaboration.
