ABOUT US
OUR MISSON & VISION
We envision a health revolution
Freedom Community Clinic envisions a health revolution that nourishes and uplifts the bodies, minds, and spirits of under-resourced communities and brings care directly to where communities gather and celebrate.
SINCE ITS FOUNDING
FCC has impacted 5,500+ people, with 95% of the people served identifying as a Person of Color and 85% of services received by Black and/or Latinx communities.
— Moreover, 75% of the people served have never tried a holistic healing modality before due to financial/access barriers, racism, and/or lack of trust.
OUR STORY
THE BEGINNING
Freedom Community Clinic was founded in 2019 in Oakland through the Youth Impact Hub on Telegraph Ave.
The clinic was founded by Dr. Bernadette (Bernie) Lim, who was 24 years old at the time and the first in her family to become a physician. Inspired by her own family experiences of ancestral healing after trauma in the medical system and building on the rich history of healing justice activism in the Bay (namely the Black Panther Party, Asian Health Services, La Clinica, and Healing Clinic Collective), Bernie sought to build upon the legacies of reimagining new future of healing that drew upon new possibilities rooted in community and in response to the medical industrial complex.
The organizing team came together through serendipitous divine alignment through 2019-2020. Together, they began to organize monthly street healing clinics at local neighborhood parks, festivals, and under freeway underpasses in collaboration with friends and local organizations serving Black and Brown people. Many of these clinics were organized spur of the moment, with organizers storing equipment and supplies in their car trunks and garages and holding organizing meetings at local taco shops.
FCC became a community healing pillar for Black, Brown, and immigrant communities, especially in 2020 when they held impromptu Healing for Black Lives clinics in response to racial injustice and street protests. Through the incredible support of community, FCC was able to establish its first brick-and-mortar Community Healing Sanctuary in September 2021 and began collaborations with many institutions, hospitals, colleges, and universities.
From its grassroots origins with pop-up healing clinics in systemically disinvested areas of Oakland…
FCC now has daily community healing services at two of its recently opened Community Healing Sanctuaries in downtown Oakland and Fruitvale East Oakland, multiple community healing clinics/events throughout the week, community-led healing groups, healing apprenticeship programs, and consultations with BIPOC-serving non-profits/mission-driven institutions on creating healing cultures for staff. All services and programs are provided for free/at a community sliding scale and held in English and Spanish.
HEALING IS FREEDOM IS
HEALING IS FREEDOM IS
WHAT DRIVES US
FCC imagines and works towards a Whole-Person Healing Future, prioritizing care for the bodies, minds, and souls of Black, Brown, and immigrant communities in the Bay Area.
MEET THE TEAM
Our core team is Oakland-rooted and led by Womxn & Gender Non-Conforming People of Color.
We each do this work because we witnessed our families, communities, and loved ones create their own methods of survival and love in spite of suffering from physical, mental, and/or spiritual anguish. Our work is to collectively re-imagine, vision, and create a world where whole-person healing is a priority for ourselves, our people, and our communities.
Dr. Bernadette (Bernie) Lim (She/Her) MD, MS
Founder and Executive Director
Dr. Bernie Lim, MD, MS describes herself as a Creator, Healer, and Warrior. She is the daughter of Filipinx and Toisan immigrants and this first in her family to become a physician. She founded Freedom Community Clinic at 24 years old through the Oakland Youth Impact Hub. She also is the founder and creator of the Woke WOC Docs Podcast and part of the founding team of the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine.
At 29 years old, she serves as faculty at San Francisco State’s Institute for Holistic Health Studies and recently graduated from UCSF School of Medicine and earned her Master’s at UC Berkeley School of Public Health through the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. She graduated from Harvard University in 2016 with cum laude honors, and went on to be a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India.
-
Bernadette is also an herbalist, Reiki Master, yoga teacher, meditation instructor, DJ, a professional classical pianist of 25+ years, and salsera. Bernie envisions and works towards a world where each person is affirmed, loved and cared for.
For her work, she has received honors including as an Echoing Green Fellow, World Policy Forum Young Global Changer, Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Award for Excellence in Social Mission in Health Professions Education, Yamashita Prize Outstanding Emerging Social Activist in California, AAMC Herbert Nickens Scholar, National Minority Quality Forum 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health, California Senate District 29 Women of the Year Honoree, U.S. Philippines Embassy Filipino Young Leaders Program Delegate, UCSF Dean's Prize Scholar in Health and Society, and Pacific Standard Top 30 Under 30 Thinkers in Policy and Social Justice, among many others.
Dr. Tiffany López (She/Her) D.AC, L.AC, Acupuncturist
Director Of Community Collaborations, Ideas, and Spiritual Alignment
When Tiffany chose a healing profession, it was with the goal of bringing affordability and access to those of lower socio-economic backgrounds who are only familiar with western forms of healing. Growing up in a low-income urban environment and then living in a wealthy suburban environment for a few years enabled Tiffany to see not only wealth disparities but also how they affect health and quality of life. These disparities create barriers to accessing the multitude of healing modalities available.
-
While Tiffany considered many careers in the field of healing, she came to choose Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) because of its holistic approach. Traditional Chinese Medicine sees that the emotional and physical bodies are linked and dis-ease can stem from an imbalance of either or both.
In graduate school, Tiffany and a classmate offered free acupuncture to the community through a series of monthly clinics. Shortly after, they developed a free acupuncture clinic at St. Vincent de Paul on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, CA. Since graduating and obtaining her license, Tiffany has contracted with a non-profit organization that focuses on supporting disenfranchised populations seeking treatment for Substance Use Disorder. She enjoys introducing TCM and acupuncture to those who are not familiar with this modality.
Esperanza Jimenez (She/Her)
Director Of Cultural Arts And Healing Sanctuaries, Founder Of Un Mundo Sin Fronteras (Formerly Undocuhealing)
Born and raised in Mexico, Esperanza is rooted in love, freedom, and tradition. She is committed to uplifting cultural traditions and medicine for communities that continue to migrate to the U.S. and those that wish to reconnect. She migrated to San Francisco at the age of nine and graduated from SFSU with a BS in Public Health with an emphasis in Holistic Health and Women’s Health. Navigating academia encouraged her turn to ancestral medicine as a way to heal past trauma, deconstruct what it means to live beyond her immigration status, and remember her power.
-
She founded Un Mundo sin Fronteras (formerly known as Undocuhealing) with the intention to create a space for newcomers, Indigenous youth from Latin America, to build community, maintain a connection to their cultural traditions and ways of healing. Esperanza is on a journey to use her gifts and testimony as medicine to share with others. She uses travel to expand her wisdom, explores her creativity by experimenting in the kitchen, and prays with the ancestors alongside Calpulli Ehecatl Tonatiuh. Her commitment to self and the communities she serves are deeply intertwined.
Dr. Alexis Cooke (She/Her) PHD, MPH
Director Of Operations, Strategy, & Community Research
Alexis is a Reiki practitioner, public health professional and intuitive herbalist. As a public health professional, Alexis is interested in how community, policy and clinical environments shape substance use behaviors risks and consequences. Both professionally and personally Alexis is interested in examining the behaviors, activities and relationships people engage in to deal with the impacts of inequitable social structures.
-
As a wellness practitioner, Alexis is most interested in holding space for people, wherever they may be in their healing journey and she hopes to support people through connecting them to tools and resources which facilitate well-being.
Sabrina Valadez-Rios (She/Her)
Director Of School-Based Healing & Advocacy
Sabrina is an Oakland born-and-raised community leader, educator, and creative connoisseur. Sabrina works as the Director of Creative Communications at Freedom Community Clinic, Community engagement manager for LifeLong Medical Care, Founder of FCC's Heal the Hood Initiative, and fulltime scholar.
-
Sabrina's passions include uplifting her community and looking good while doing it! She uses her creative eye to organically bring out the beauty and simplicity of her surroundings and create a "vibe" from a social media post to our work/healing spaces. When she is not organizing or learning, she is keeping up with the latest fashion trends and curating outfits and interior designs.
B Dukes (They/Them)
Creative Director
Originally from the small town Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina, and now Bay Area-based, multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and healer B Dukes explores their intersections within the black and brown community as a non-binary queer. Since a young person, Dukes has been passionate about connecting the dots between the needs and the resources.
Currently, B concentrates on embracing and capturing the natural ebbs and flows of the community while also contributing to the construction of sacred and safe spaces for ritualistic healing and rest, an element unfamiliar to their upbringing.
-
A community-taught and second-generation photographer, B interweaves community care with visual storytelling and sound healing as navigating the world while transforming the mental health and hearts of the community is their first love.
B Dukes seeks to constantly challenge and research the parallels of what is and what can be, what resources exist, who should have access to them, what does safety and wellness look like in our marginalized communities. B is an audio engineering graduate of Full Sail University and currently in the early stages of pursuing a career in psychology while working as an IT technician.
Marakee Tilahun (She/Her)
Director of Land & Community Stewardship
Coming from a household of Ethiopian immigrants, family was always a huge part of our lives. Not only blood, but those that you surround yourself with and those within your community. Having been introduced at such a young age to a selfless neverending love it only made me want to keep on pouring it back out. I realized this turned into a calling of mine, to do more for the community that I place myself in.
By getting into outreach with Freedom Community Clinic, I’ve been able to find ways where I can provide care for unhoused folks as well as connect with those in my community in versatile manors.
-
I currently work as a medical assistant while concurrently applying to different post graduate programs to further my education in medicine to be a better asset for those in need of medical assistance.
Support Freedom Community Clinic
Give today and support healing and justice for communities of color.