A decade ago, three friends got together to discuss how to protect the dignity of the unborn and help parents in need on the Caribbean Island of Barbados. Today, one of those three friends continues to oversee the fruit of that meeting.
Unborn Justice is the only pregnancy help center in Barbados and over the past 10 years it has developed a wide range of services for men, women, and children facing unplanned or overwhelming pregnancies. What began as an idea in 2014 materialized to helping a few young women in need and later bloomed into a registered pro-life charity.
“Eleven years ago when I was 23 I sat down with two friends,” Unborn Justice Executive Director Kamille Martindale told Pregnancy Help News, “and I just shared with them my heart for the unborn, wanting to help women who have unplanned pregnancies, who may be having challenges.”
“At that time, we were not aware of what a pregnancy help center was,” she said.
Despite their lack of resources, Martindale and her friends came up with a plan to help these women and “started the work of Unborn Justice about eight months later in August 2014. The initial services were a baby boutique providing free material resources, like clothing and diapers, and educational day-long workshops led by Martindale.
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She explained that their work flourished once they “found out about Heartbeat [International] and attended one of the conferences in 2016.”
The Heartbeat conference informed the young pro-lifers about pregnancy help centers and the range of their services, inspiring them to open a center in their own country.
“In April 2017 we opened Barbados’ first and currently only pregnancy resource center,” Martindale said. “Our mission is to provide hope and help to women and their partners with crisis pregnancies as well as support for post-abortive women and men.”
Today, Unborn Justice offers a comprehensive range of services expanding the inaugural boutique and workshops, including pregnancy testing, a food distribution program, a thrift store and post-abortive counseling.
Additionally, Martindale explained, “We go into schools and churches, and we teach about abortion and the impact of abortion.”
Unborn Justice has also invested in other client programs, one of which is a collaborative service called Earn While You Learn. This program provides “Mummy Money” and “Daddy Dollars” for parents who attend educational sessions, which they can use to purchase material resources from the thrift store and baby boutique.
Topics covered in group sessions include pregnancy, parenting, and personal development.
While the benefit of these group gatherings has been noted by center leadership, Martindale shared that they “thought that there was a gap in our services” that still needed to be filled. To fill in the gap of “missing the one-on-one interaction,” Unborn Justice added client advocate sessions.
“But then, we realized that there were clients who have mental health challenges who needed more than we could offer,” Martindale said, noting that such services are “very expensive” and inaccessible to most working people in Barbados, including Unborn Justice clients, who are generally low-income parents and families.
“We decided that we needed to have a psychologist on our team who could provide that professional counseling for clients and will work alongside the client advocate to provide that specialized care that they need,” she said.
Now, Unborn Justice collaborates with a psychologist through their psychosocial support program launched in the last few years. This individual works with the sole mental health institution in Barbados so that clients in need of medication can have access to that care.
Tweet This: Today, 10 years after its founding in Barbados Unborn Justice offers a comprehensive range of pregnancy help services.
Because healthcare is free in Barbados, enabling women to have free pregnancy tests at any local clinic, Unborn Justice’s pregnancy testing is not used as frequently as other services.
However, the more day-to-day services such as the psychosocial support, Earn While You Learn, and resource handouts are used “on a weekly basis.”
Martindale’s leadership of the growing ministry was recognized during the 2020 Heartbeat International conference, at which she was given the Heart of the Future award in acknowledgment of her work.
Celebrating God’s goodness with gratitude
On Feb. 8, the leaders, staff, and volunteers of Unborn Justice gathered to celebrate 10 years of service to the men, women, and children of Barbados.
“We really wanted to take time to celebrate and show appreciation to [the people] who have helped build Unborn Justice over the last ten years,” Martindale said.
She explained that she was struck by the third chapter of the book of Nehemiah, which details the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and wanted to recognize all the people who helped to build Unborn Justice.
Those in attendance at the anniversary dinner included donors, volunteers, those who offered help sessions, pastors who partnered with the ministry, as well as its staff and board members.
Additionally, what was described as “time to really just celebrate together” also included Heartbeat International President Jor-El Godsey, about which Martindale said United Justice was “so happy that he was able to join us.”
Jor-El Godsey speaks at the Unborn Justice event/Unborn Justice
Facing the abortion landscape in Barbados
When asked about the pregnancy help climate in Barbados, Martindale described the island’s abortion laws as “very liberal in the sense that you don’t need a reason to have an abortion.” She said that women can obtain abortions for free, differentiating the industry from that in the United States in that abortion is “not for financial gain.”
“Before we started Unborn Justice, abortion was a very tough topic,” she explained. “It wasn’t really spoken about. We don’t have a pro-life [or] pro-choice movement, so one of our goals was to establish a pro-life community in Barbados.”
Unborn Justice is not without its opponents, as they have received “negative press [and] negative media coverage” in the past. But Martindale emphasized that the ministry “focus[es] on doing the work God has called us to, so we don’t really engage in media anymore, we just focus on our work.” The controversy between the “many” people who are “still pro-choice" has since been limited as Unborn Justice does not actively participate in advocacy.
But the ministry is also becoming “more and more a familiar name,” with greater openness to its work. Martindale shared that the sole electric company on Barbados has previously partnered with Unborn Justice for a Christmas giveaway of baby items and gifts, which received positive media coverage.
Future endeavors
Looking ahead, Unborn Justice has big plans for the expansion of its services.
Martindale told Pregnancy Help News that the ministry was gifted an ultrasound machine, for which they are currently seeking a doctor with whom to partner to be able to offer ultrasounds given by a medical provider.
Although Unborn Justice does not have the resources to do so itself, Martindale said, “We do hope another organization will create a maternity home because that is really, really needed.”
Another plan of expansion is to add a male client advocate who can minister to fathers and men more directly.
“Don’t despise small beginnings,” Martindale said when asked what advice she would give to other pregnancy help centers getting on their feet. “It’s okay to start small. I think there’s benefits to starting small because you learn to steward what you have and are then able to manage as it expands.”
“Each center may look different based on needs,” she said, “so you have to find out what the needs are in your community and see how to meet those needs. And, most importantly, trust that God will provide for His work.”
Martindale also expressed how “really grateful” Unborn Justice is for the “support” provided to the ministry by Heartbeat International. She added that the Unborn Justice hopes to “impact the pregnancy help movement not just here but in the Caribbean.”
“We look forward to seeing how God will work,” Martindale said. “There are many islands [that] don’t have centers and where abortion is legal. So, we hope that we can be able to help start centers in other countries [and] other islands as well.”
