Your story doesn’t need to be dramatic—just your lived experience.

Kaylen Barker and Takeiya Smith bring complementary expertise in reproductive justice and community power-building to their collaborative work in West Virginia. Kaylen Barker began organizing in West Virginia during her time at West Virginia State University, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in history and a master of public administration with a focus in public policy.

Barker has extensive experience working directly with impacted communities and building coalitions to protect and expand access to reproductive health care, particularly in restrictive environments. Barker has been working in the reproductive justice space since 2021 but has been building lasting relationships with legislators and civic leaders in West Virginia since 2016. During her tenure at both the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia and Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates.

She worked closely with community leaders, legislators, grassroots organizations, and legal partners at both the state and national levels to protect and expand reproductive freedom and health justice. In multiple states across the country between 2022 and 2025, Barker played a key role in defeating numerous harmful anti-reproductive justice and anti-2SLGBTQIA+ bills and mitigating the impact of legislation that did pass through strategic amendments, as well as working with leaders to draft proactive reproductive and maternal health legislation focusing on policies that would improve maternal and infant health. Through her coalition-based approach and her commitment to uplifting the voices of impacted people, she has leveraged relationships across the political spectrum alongside grassroots mobilization, public education campaigns, and strategic communications to support and empower vulnerable communities during the fall of Roe v. Wade and subsequent abortion restrictions.

In 2015, Takeiya Smith founded and became the Executive Director of the Young West Virginia Power Building Movement—a youth- and Black-led, nonpartisan organization. Since then, Smith has been an integral part of building one of our state’s largest networks of young, civically engaged Black people in West Virginia. A recipient of the 2022 West Virginia’s Wonder Woman award, Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from West Virginia State University.

She has over a decade of experience organizing with youth, parents, educators, faith leaders, and elected officials in Black communities, centering the voices of those most impacted by structural inequities to address racial justice issues. Through relational organizing, coalition building, grassroots training, voter engagement, and advocacy, she has empowered emerging leaders to drive systemic change across the state. Under her leadership, Young WV mobilizes communities to address racial disparities, educates on economic and social justice policies, and challenges legislation that undermines local governance and equity. Notably, Smith served on the Board of the Women’s Health Center of WV while Barker worked there, fostering a collaborative foundation that links reproductive justice with community power-building. Together, their combined expertise in policy advocacy, coalition strategy, and grassroots organizing positions them to strengthen West Virginia communities by expanding support for reproductive freedom and health justice, advancing equity, and cultivating the next generation of civic leaders.