Jannah Bierens is a Black biracial North Carolina native who uses feminine and gender non-conforming pronouns. As Founder of PHREEEDOM LLC, she consults and facilitates dialogue around root causes of oppression, intersectionality, and power imbalance for narrative shifting and systems change toward advancing racial and health equity. Jannah dreamed up PHREEEDOM as her frustrations of “doing health equity” within institutions were continuously fueled by lack of historical analysis, intention, and specific expertise and leadership necessary for the advancement of anti-racist/oppressive practices.
Prior to relocating to Lansing, MI to work as a Health Equity Consultant in 2020, Jannah spent most of their 20-year public health career in Durham, NC at the local government level. Driven by a deep passion for eliminating historically rooted Black health disparities, they educated, advocated, and organized around opportunities and access to optimal health in community with residents who have been traditionally marginalized, by design. Jannah holds a strong belief that collective justice and healing are critical to centering shared humanity, realizing our bound liberation, and improvement in health and life outcomes for all.
With an undergraduate foundation in the study of Exercise Science, Mx. Bierens holds an M.P.H. with graduate certificates in Health Management & Policy and Health Education & Promotion, in addition to their M.A. in Social Justice & Community Organizing. However, it is lived experience and upbringing by lessons filtered through generations of Black superwomen, which have prepared them most for working with people and organizations, collectively, to get PHREEE.
