Note from Our Founders
As professional women with over 20-years of combined experience in diverse fields, we are dedicated to facilitating community-wide and systemic change in the areas of women’s healthcare, as we have experienced the poorest outcomes. Our story is much like the women we work with, and our goal is to give back to communities much like the ones we grew up in.
We are mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who have experienced the challenges of being a woman in today’s world. We believe the only way to change the current state of affairs, particularly as it comes to women’s healthcare, is by creating a community that shares the same goal of creating broader access to equitable healthcare that can truly help women achieve better medical outcomes.
We hope that you will join us in helping these organizations reach new heights.
All the best,
Jamillah & Takiya
Jamillah Tax-Berman
Prior to her current position as an advisor to city-wide non-profits, Mrs. Tax-Berman worked in local government and the private sector where she was committed to finding solutions to social conditions that lead to crimes of poverty and inspire feelings of deep despondency in marginalized communities. Mrs. Tax-Berman believes that solutions to issues facing underserved communities come from people that live, work, and play there. Therefore, small community-based and grassroots organizations need the support and capacity to move their work to the next level. In response to this need, she has developed the Helix Strategy Center to help them move out of their silos and collaborate.
Mrs. Tax-Berman has served in many capacities in city and state government, where her titles have included community outreach coordinator, interim chief of staff, legislative aide, communications director, deputy chief of staff, and budget director. During her years working for a City Council member, she was charged with overseeing the administration of discretionary and capital funding to some of the neediest programs and projects in Harlem; identifying city, state and federal grant opportunities for eligible non-profits; and implementing targeted evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention in NYC’s Healthy Aging Initiative. She strategized with community stakeholders to find ways to address the education and health needs of under-represented populations in communities of color, and played an integral role in shaping public policy around green markets, community gardens, and health outcomes as well as bringing enrichment programs to struggling schools districts.
Takiya Meniel
Mrs. Meniel is an Operations Strategist with many years of experience working in public and private sector organizations. She has dedicated her career to building strong organizations that benefit clients and communities, through the development of high-performance teams, organizational effectiveness and leadership excellence. She is passionate about helping others succeed with effective planning, execution and follow-up.
As a trained Hemodialysis Care Technician, Personal Care Assistant and Personal Healthcare Consultant, she utilizes her background in strategic planning and execution as she works meticulously with patients with chronic conditions and their healthcare practitioners to better provide customized care to each client, who are mostly Black women with limited incomes. It was engaging in this role that she began to learn more about the progression of several disease states, such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, chronic kidney disease, and end-stage renal disease, as well as their effects on pericardial effusion, cerebrovascular accidents (stroke), myocardial infarction (heart attack) and vascular dementia.
She has seen first-hand how personalized education and collaboration improve prognosis, as well as the quality of life for her clients. Her goal with Helix is to expand that reach nationally.
“I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change…I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” – Angela Davis