March 16, 2025
Podcasthon Special Episode: Breaking Barriers in Birth Work with BeboMia
🎙️ Special Podcasthon Episode: Breaking Barriers in Birth Work with the BeboMia Doula Scholarship
This Birth Journeys Podcast® episode is part of Podcasthon, a global movement uniting podcasters to spotlight impactful causes. We’re shining a light on the BeboMia Doula Scholarship Program, which provides essential training to those who wouldn’t otherwise have access, transforming birth experiences worldwide.
Birth educator and doula trainer Bianca Sprague shares how birth experiences shape parenthood, yet modern healthcare often prioritizes efficiency over personalized care. Doulas bridge this gap, advocating for birthing people, supporting partners, and ensuring all families receive respectful, individualized care—regardless of background.
Through BeboMia’s Scholarship Program, Bianca has helped train thousands of birth workers, awarding over $350,000 in tuition assistance across 50+ countries. These scholarships combat disparities in maternal health by expanding access to culturally competent care—ensuring that support is available where it’s needed most.
"My goal is to empower women and queer folks, and I chose to do it through doula training." — Bianca Sprague
🎧 Listen now to learn how BeboMia is transforming birth work!
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Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Chapters
02:25 - Comprehensive Doula Training
05:33 - Nurse Workload and Patient Care
09:59 - The Role of Doulas as Bridges
12:57 - Birth Trauma and Postpartum Support
17:39 - Scholarship Programs at Bebo Mia
31:09 - Breaking Down Birth Options
43:18 - Making Doula Work Profitable
48:52 - Transformative Power of Doula Work
01:02:03 - Small Pockets of Change
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much for having me back and that was so lovely.
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I can't get enough of when people read or talk about me.
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I used to get so shy about it and like, uh, and as I've done my own healing work, I just it makes my heart feel so full, I just let it wash over me.
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So thank you for those kind words.
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Yeah, that folks have two years, I mean they never leave the community and we could do continuing education forever, um, so it's.
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It's very comprehensive, as it should.
00:02:04.962 --> 00:02:06.243
Really important.
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It's not only fighting the medical system of which is deeply flawed like we teach how to change the system which is not while somebody's giving birth.
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There's lots of ways around that to change the system which is not while somebody's giving birth.
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There's lots of ways around that to change the system.
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But there's also that runs alongside of that.
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It's really important that we teach our doulas to not be attached to outcomes, because people can be fighting their system as well as being like I will get you that home birth, I will get you that unmedicated birth.
00:03:04.423 --> 00:03:25.020
I will avoid an operative birth, if somebody actually might prefer an operative birth, and so there's many ways that a not great trained birth worker can actually do harm, and one of the big ones is chaos in the birthing space, when you're using that to go to war rather than you have to prepare your clients.
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And then there's lots of other ways that we challenge the systems.
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Yeah, yeah, truly, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
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Yeah, we know the limitations of time that nurses have.
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There's so much charting and we know that the workload is just it's unreasonable, the workload that's put on a nurse, and I know that there's lots of nurses that would really love to be doing the different type of patient care, because that's usually why you went into a helping and healing field is because you wanted to do that, but unfortunately, due to bureaucracy and the business of medicine, you're standing in front of a computer, checking, clicking.
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You don't get to really develop that relationship with your patients, which I know it can be really sad for nurses and midwives too Once it regulated.
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Midwives are in that same boat now too, and I know that there's probably a really big loss feeling and it can be a challenge for a nurse to have what they wish it was and what the reality is, because I know lots of nurses are like, no, we do lots of fill in the blank and I was like, no, you want to be doing lots of that, but you're actually not.
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Like if I had a timer and was like, go, how much hands on time did you have touching my client?
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It's very low and I do not hold that against nurses.
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They're also down, getting the shortest end of the stick, as far as if we go to the top of government and policymakers and then the president of the hospital system, the board, and it works its way down and nurses, you're just right down there with doulas and the patients, yeah, it's raining down on you.
00:06:02.644 --> 00:06:09.887
So we keep that in mind because that is also what's happening for nurses, like getting kicked all day long.
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And I love nurses and you guys are between a rock and a hard place and it does mean that nurses do shitty things, but it's explainable because fatigue and not enough time and you're also being guided by the doctors right, guiding in the wrong direction.
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Every doctor.
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If a nurse has heard a doctor say everybody gets pit, then you start parroting everybody gets pit.
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And so the first time somebody's.
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I don't think I want it.
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They're like everybody gets it.
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So put your arm out because I have stuff to do and I'm like this is the nurse's fault.
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That's the culture that you're working within.
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Yeah, I've been bullied, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah, we are rest upon them.
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Yeah, for sure, yeah.
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And as a doula, we really want to be bridging their core team.
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That birthing person is brought in so that might be their partner, if they have one, their sister, their mother, whoever they've said.
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These people are safe and intimate to me.
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I get the pleasure of supporting nurses and like how do we do our jobs and allow them to stay in the bubble that they want to be in, and truly, when I think of my role it's, or any doulas we were like taking care of lots of different facets simultaneously, and a lot of times people think we're just there for the person giving birth, and it's not.
00:09:04.527 --> 00:09:13.782
It's so much better that way, because the person giving birth might not want you to touch them and might want you to be like nowhere near them, and so sometimes you're like what happens if somebody doesn't want to be massaged?
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You're like lots, lots still happen, and this is helpful too if anybody has a partner that's who's pregnant and listening to this, your partner might be like, oh, I don't want to be replaced or I don't know why they'd be there.
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Partners need so much care.
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They don't know what's happening, and even if they have a medical background and they know all about this, their job is to be present to their loved one as well as to have time to sleep and eat and update people, if that's part of their plan, because after the baby's born, the partners and support people are up so that birthing person, can you know, once the adrenaline down a little bit, can crash, and that they have a rested, watered, fed care team ready to take over.
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And the role of a doula is just.
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It's such a robust and amazing one to be in that space.
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Yeah, truly A heartbeat that there's heartbeats.
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Yeah, more blood.
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Yeah, yeah, I'm glad.
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Yeah, yep, yeah, yeah.
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And and we now know this, we know so much more that the adage used to be like healthy mom, healthy baby, all over hospital walls and how we define that is just what you're saying is alive and mostly alive.
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Like the bar of alive is not even that great.
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Yeah, like it's rough.
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And we now know how somebody feels about their birth is actually the most important thing outside of obviously keeping their heart beating.
00:11:25.748 --> 00:11:51.860
But like the sending people home with birth trauma, feeling disempowered, feeling like they just lost their voice and expecting them to step into parenthood and when I say step into parenthood, I don't just mean changing the diapers and doing the work of it, but like stepping in, feeling like they have the skills and tools and ability to protect and advocate for their child for the rest of their life.
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And when they have just lost their voice or been even the language using failed to progress.
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Like any of these kinds of words, we had to break your water for you.
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You're not doing it on your own, so we need to help you that stuff more we can ever.
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Even people here who are like no, I'm not that woo, I wouldn't be impacted by that.
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I promise you, you are impacted.
00:12:15.249 --> 00:12:20.429
Yeah, it just these messages go in and already we feel like we're not enough.
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Not to mention we're going home with unnecessary interventions that have side effects that are terrible, that our pelvic floors have been obliterated unnecessarily, stitches, unnecessarily incorrect lactation support, if any at all, these things.
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So then we're like, okay, here you go, and so we've got this depletion.
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Physically and emotionally it's rock bottom.
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And then we don't know how to actually support new parents out in the world.
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People show up with stuffed toys for the first couple of days and then that's the end of that.
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So it's so useless.
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And then you feel like you have to entertain, so you have to put pants on because everybody's coming over and your friends from high school are on your sofa and you feel like you need to be chatting.
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All of these things.
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That's just the reality and we think that's normal, that's been normalized and it would be fine.
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Everybody, if you're like, why are we picking at this?
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It's working?
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It's clearly not, because postpartum mood disorders have never been higher.
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Death by suicide is one of the leading causes of new moms in the first 12 months.
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So it is not working for us.
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We just think it's normal to be like depleted and sad and hate your partner.
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We're like it's just being a new mom yeah, but it's beautiful.
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And then we feel like we're like, oh, we hate this.
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But we can't say we hate this because people think we're saying we hate being a mom, ie our children, and so I'm so passionate about this, clearly, but like do is by protecting our client's voice, whatever it looks like.
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And this is a home birth, this is an induction birth, this is your plan is to have an epidural the minute you walk through that door birth.
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This is an elected C-section, this is an emergency.
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It does not matter where and how you're giving birth.
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Your voice has to be protected, your body has to be protected.
00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:23.024
Kelly, you're talking about nurses and one of the elements that's missing in all of this is the fact nurses are human and you, right away, are running up against a bias as soon as you meet a nurse, and we can't help it because it's all people.
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But unfortunately we're so susceptible to language and how we feel in birth because it's so vulnerable and our frontal lobe is flicking in and out, hopefully just staying out, but unfortunately our birth environment doesn't allow it just to like shut off, but it's like flick, flicking in and out.
00:14:40.472 --> 00:14:45.072
So you're like kind of in your body, thinking rationally, and you're kind of in this other place that you've never experienced.
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And so now we're like potentially have a healthcare provider that has a judgment about your fat body or thinks you're too young to have a baby, or you've had too many babies, or you don't speak English well enough, or that you're a part of a poly family, or they don't like your pronouns, whatever these things are.
00:15:01.703 --> 00:15:05.950
Again, because nurses are human and so we've got this whole element.
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That's happening, that will happen 100% of the time, because all people have a judgment of other people, but how it is expressed is kind of up in the air, and so the role of a doula is to actually mitigate the risks for all of those things.
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And you don't know what those things are for you because you don't know the those things are for you, because you don't know the nurse you're going to have.
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So the nurse might also be a racialized person, in which case you might not experience racism, or they might be queer, so they might be open to that, but they still might be fatphobic or they still might have ageism, or they don't like the choices that you're making and if they were doing it they would think you know you're careless or they suspect that you probably look like you've done drugs.
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But it might just be because you have green hair and not great dental care.
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Trained doula a goodly trained doula a well-trained doula also learns how to buffer for those things.
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So our clients might not even know that this stuff's happening because the doula has literally put themselves between these potential isms or biases or judgments.
00:16:20.581 --> 00:16:26.547
I know that there's nurses who I loved working with and then I've had clients come in that something about them rubbed them the wrong way.
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They were like I have a judgment here.
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And then they've been really rough with my client and so I've been able to be like hey, do you want me to do that?
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Or make eye contact, because I have built a rapport with the staff to be like you're not treating my client the same way that you would.
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You've treated all my this-aged married clients this way and you're now treating my 15-year-old client very differently.
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So I get to do that before my 15-year-old client might know that they're getting punishment treatment, which nurses of teens do.
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They're like we're going to make this as uncomfortable as possible so that you know you've made a grave mistake here in having a baby as a child, and so I get to protect that space, hopefully, hopefully, my clients have missed it.
00:17:10.083 --> 00:17:21.391
Or like guiding the nurse out to be like, hey, listen, I feel like you might be a bit off today, because I've had just such wonderful experiences with you and I'm just like I really need their birth to be as wonderful as it is.
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So if you're not really feeling up to it, do you think we could swap nurses?
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Or do you need to go eat something?
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And that's how I can have that.
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And my clients don't know that's even happened.
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I come in and I'm like great, your IV is going.
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Are you happy in this position?
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Do you want some ice chips?
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What do we want to do next?
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And they're just like this is great, I'm continuing on and I'm going to have my baby, and so those are things that most partners or friends or sisters wouldn't know how to do it.
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They'd just be like oh my God, that nurse is such a bitch, or like, and then we kind of circle in and A, the behavior doesn't stop, and B, now like there's tension.
00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:23.246
No, it's impossible for most people, yeah, yeah.
00:18:23.246 --> 00:18:24.871
Well, because biases do go both ways.
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I want to hold that.
00:18:27.641 --> 00:18:34.228
The clients might be like I don't really want a racialized person being my nurse, somebody with an accent, somebody whose perfume smells too bad, whatever the thing is.
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Biases are going all directions.
00:18:37.981 --> 00:19:16.413
Yeah, yeah, and I just I love that I get to really moderate and support in that way and and just have my clients just not know about it, because I know I've also had lots of nurses roll their eyes because they're doing something quote weird, and I'm just like I just make sure that my clients don't feel a judgment of this thing.
00:19:16.413 --> 00:19:22.444
There's things that even I'm like, wow, that's kind of weird, but like it's not my birth, we're going to go with it.
00:19:22.444 --> 00:19:31.571
And sometimes it feels weird to even hold that space and sometimes I'm like get thrown into whatever the song or the symbol or I don't know.
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I just I'm thinking of some husbands that were a bit cringy in my mind, but I'm like they're in their zone and it's beautiful and magical to them.
00:19:39.084 --> 00:19:42.369
So yeah, I wouldn't do this at my birth, but it's not my birth.
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My job is to just support their birth.
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I love how you set your tone.
00:19:59.548 --> 00:20:04.715
I have to work on how I say it being like there's weekend trainings available and you did the weekend, which is what I think in my head to say it.
00:20:04.715 --> 00:20:08.434
I have I say it being like there's weekend trainings available and you did the weekend, which is what I think in my head to say it.
00:20:08.434 --> 00:20:09.336
I have to say it.
00:20:09.336 --> 00:20:48.559
You, yeah.
00:20:48.740 --> 00:20:54.022
So our scholarship oh man, I'm so proud of this program and it kind of got away from me.
00:20:54.022 --> 00:21:04.670
It started just like one student I don't know in 2014, maybe 20, 2012, somewhere around there that we offered our first scholarship and now it's bonkers.
00:21:04.670 --> 00:21:27.286
We've given over $350,000 in tuition away to predominantly equity-seeking groups with students in over 50 countries, and so when they come in, our scholarship committee reviews all the applications and the committee is made up of also recipients as well as health care professionals around the world and once they're in, we actually have our scholarship.
00:21:27.286 --> 00:21:29.451
Students go through just like a standard.
00:21:29.451 --> 00:21:32.627
They're not separated in any way and they get the full program.
00:21:32.627 --> 00:21:36.478
So with that, they get their live lectures, which everybody does.
00:21:36.478 --> 00:21:51.507
They get their access to office hours, their practicum sessions, breakout sessions, free therapy, because we believe that when we're doing this kind of care work, we see things that have big T and little t traumas and we want to have healed helpers and healers out there.
00:21:51.507 --> 00:22:08.048
They get the entire program as well as lifelong continuing education and with that we also have what we call the scholarship light up series and these also go on forever, that all of the scholarship recipients throughout time.
00:22:08.048 --> 00:22:10.313
We go once a month and we have this.
00:22:10.473 --> 00:22:10.914
I don't know why.
00:22:10.914 --> 00:22:20.457
I've never been to church but I like picture it like this gospel session, like they're just, like there's these really good, feel good, reach out to community, keep our hands on the pulse.
00:22:20.457 --> 00:22:41.192
We really want to see scholarship recipients finish and we know that some of the precarity that comes with folks who have no and low income, there's a lot of additional stresses that need to be acknowledged and need to be held and need to be like not to say that if somebody can come up with a tuition, you don't also have these stresses.
00:22:41.192 --> 00:22:51.758
But we really nurture our scholarship community so that it's not just like here's your entrance and then Godspeed and let's see how you go with everybody in the standard stream.
00:22:51.758 --> 00:23:03.432
So we do those light up sessions, as I say, monthly, and in that we do community support and then we always have I'm not using sermon, I don't know why I've fallen into church language.
00:23:03.432 --> 00:23:09.314
There's an element yeah, like it feels too flat because they are.
00:23:09.314 --> 00:23:22.914
They're really touching and I know yeah, sure, I know I don't know what's happening to me, but I do Something about the light up feels different than anything else we do.
00:23:23.204 --> 00:23:27.550
But, yeah, then we have a thing after and like the last one we did was about asking for help.
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What are the barriers to asking for help?
00:23:29.595 --> 00:23:42.625
And I and part of it is I actually do that one, probably every six months or so like a touch base on asking for help, because it's really brave to ask for help and we hold every person that's reached out and said you know what?
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I really want to do this?
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This is a difference I want to make in my community and I want you guys to get me there and that's so brave.
00:23:49.760 --> 00:23:57.066
And so sometimes people are like they've done it and then they've retreated back again and I want people to keep asking for help.
00:23:57.066 --> 00:24:00.554
All should be asking for help all the time, regardless of income.
00:24:00.554 --> 00:24:03.147
This is something that we struggle with.
00:24:03.147 --> 00:24:14.189
It's part of this neoliberal nonsense of go into your house, you live alone, you figure it out on your own, you just live with your baby alone and if you're a good parent, you'll do it all.
00:24:14.189 --> 00:24:28.410
I feel like this scholarship committee has already done such a massive, vulnerable thing that it's like a really fun conversation to keep that going, because I already think they're ahead of the group on that skillset.
00:24:28.944 --> 00:24:44.729
One of the things we also are really proud of is maybe three years ago we pivoted to offer partial scholarships as well, because we did have folks write to us saying I'm not no income, I'm low income, but I have saved half my tuition and I can't.
00:24:44.729 --> 00:24:51.217
I'm like I keep trying and for two years I've been trying to do the program because I just happens and then I don't get that last little bit.
00:24:51.217 --> 00:25:02.833
So people can ask for a 30% scholarship, a 50% scholarship or 70% scholarship and with that we've been able to offer have maybe 50 additional students a year go through.
00:25:02.833 --> 00:25:05.798
Yeah, I don't know why it took us so long to think of that.
00:25:05.798 --> 00:25:07.686
I was like, and then it hit me.
00:25:07.686 --> 00:25:17.509
I was like people can just ask for a little bit of help Because it was so hard, because everybody would just be sent in the full tuition, and so then we'd be like we have 15 scholarships.
00:25:17.509 --> 00:25:20.907
But there was people that are like I don't actually need $2,000.
00:25:20.907 --> 00:25:22.853
I need $500.
00:25:22.853 --> 00:25:26.241
I have the rest ready, and so that was really exciting.
00:25:26.301 --> 00:25:30.292
And we've made even a bigger impact and with our application process.
00:25:30.292 --> 00:25:38.535
We've been tweaking the application every semester since we started the program because it's kind of like an ever changing.
00:25:38.535 --> 00:25:44.396
We never want it to feel like poverty porn, which is, and we never want people to have to prove that they're in need.
00:25:44.396 --> 00:25:47.451
It's to us we're like use your integrity and if you're coming in low integrity and we never want people to have to prove that they're in need, it's to us we're like use your integrity.
00:25:47.451 --> 00:26:01.069
And if you're coming in low integrity, which we have, people after that we've seen they've opened their Facebook up or they've shared things and I was like, oh, that sucks that you've gone on three vacations because there's people that you know your integrity is out and we just let them exist.
00:26:01.069 --> 00:26:02.996
With that they've done a low integrity thing.
00:26:02.996 --> 00:26:14.135
So we've been really intentional with the types of questions we asked and why we're asking it, so that being under-resourced sucks.
00:26:14.155 --> 00:26:15.339
I was single parented for many years with never enough.
00:26:15.339 --> 00:26:25.450
It felt so terrible Anything that would like quote, offer help that I was like you need to make me to feel like so shitty to maybe get some crumbs, and so we've.
00:26:25.450 --> 00:26:29.893
We take feedback every semester to be like how did you feel filling this out?
00:26:29.893 --> 00:26:39.330
Because we want people to feel empowered and excited from the moment they start filling out that application and not feel like we don't want you to dig through and tell us all the terrible things.
00:26:39.330 --> 00:26:43.366
We want to like yeah, like it's not a race to the bottom.
00:26:43.366 --> 00:26:48.077
We, yeah, and some and some places there's room to share that.
00:26:48.566 --> 00:27:02.858
But we really want people to see how resilient they are and see the gifts that their life experiences can provide their community, because we know lived experience is way more impactful than traditional education streams.
00:27:02.858 --> 00:27:08.915
And so somebody's writing saying they've been incarcerated since they were 18 from crimes of poverty.
00:27:08.915 --> 00:27:12.913
Now they're out and they want to do these things and they want to support the incarcerated community.
00:27:12.913 --> 00:27:14.121
I'm like let's fan this.
00:27:14.121 --> 00:27:19.233
Let's not talk about the fact that you fell into the terrible industrial prison complex.
00:27:19.233 --> 00:27:20.497
Let's talk about that.
00:27:20.497 --> 00:27:32.151
You have a lived experience and you know what's happening to other pregnant people who find themselves in these situations, which most of the time is the system's failing individuals and it's not the fault of the individual.
00:27:32.151 --> 00:27:52.875
Now they're treated completely differently by society and deserve care and support and celebration and love, and we want them to talk about what they can do with this experience and send a ripple of amazing out into the world, rather than having like crumple in that now they're reintegrating into society and not cherished.
00:27:53.196 --> 00:28:06.910
And it is a work in progress because, much as many of our students or folks that apply are from Canada and the US and Australia and England, we do have people that are applying from many countries where some of the questions are not relevant.
00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:08.634
They're just like wait, what are you talking about?
00:28:08.634 --> 00:28:10.238
For example, equity-seeking groups.
00:28:10.238 --> 00:28:18.633
We have, say, people applying from the MENA region, so it's the Middle East, north Africa, and they're not an equity-seeking group in North Africa.
00:28:18.633 --> 00:28:42.986
As a racialized person, they're part of dominant culture, and so we have to navigate through because we're like, okay, they say they're not an equity-seeking group, but we can see that they're a Black person, but they're not experiencing racism in their country, and so it's so nuanced and complicated, which is why we have representation from different countries who are reviewing these applications, and there's other things that I don't know.
00:28:42.986 --> 00:28:56.817
It's not necessarily culturally relevant some of the questions, so we do have to find, like, really creative ways to draw out that information, knowing our program is global and folks get to answer.
00:28:56.817 --> 00:28:58.999
We've gone on a whole journey here, so here's your question.
00:28:59.038 --> 00:28:59.519
But they get.
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:07.229
They get so much support because one of the things we're really proud of is the no hidden fees part of our certification.
00:29:07.229 --> 00:29:11.767
Like you come in, you're certified and it's up to us to do your continuing education.
00:29:11.767 --> 00:29:13.550
It's up to us to recertify you.
00:29:13.550 --> 00:29:23.506
It's up to us to keep you relevant and current with your skills, and so our scholarship recipients have the exact, the full program that every person does.
00:29:23.506 --> 00:29:40.867
There's nothing different about what happens as they come through and with that, because it's great that we teach people how to be doulas, but we need to teach people how to connect with clients or be picked up by a hospital system or an insurance company.
00:29:40.867 --> 00:29:43.556
However, you want to get paid Throughout the whole program.
00:29:43.556 --> 00:29:52.163
Their business training that runs alongside it it's all included as well, and they go through their business cohort with their peers.
00:29:52.163 --> 00:29:55.919
They're going through and getting that training and it's really fun.
00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:03.449
I love I get to teach all the business stuff and it's my favorite because we talk about all the things you can do with this training, which is not just hands-on care.
00:30:03.449 --> 00:30:17.949
You're an expert known reproductive health and justice, from fertility all the way to that postpartum period, and so we spend a couple hours literally talking about all the businesses you could start with this information, because I know lots of people are really drawn to it.
00:30:17.949 --> 00:30:44.053
But they're like oh, I have three kids under six and so we're like you will soon be able to be on call because your kids are going to be in school in a couple of years and, in the interim, here's all these really amazing in-person products and digital businesses that you can start, so that you are setting that groundwork with your business and your brand and so that, when you are ready, if you are, maybe your business, that you, your digital business, is great and you just continue on that.
00:30:44.053 --> 00:30:56.671
But if you're like, no, I really want to do hands-on traditional doula care, that we have that priming done, so that you're not just like after your first kid goes to kindergarten, that you're like, okay, well, I guess now I'm going to start my doula business.
00:30:56.671 --> 00:30:58.526
There's lots of stuff that you can be doing.
00:30:58.526 --> 00:31:08.840
So we teach all of those skills which allow people to actually make this profitable and lucrative and to support as many families as possible, so they know how to find you.
00:31:15.566 --> 00:31:20.192
Yeah, so we have the Ember Blueprint is what it's called, and so that's on the site as well.
00:31:20.192 --> 00:31:21.990
We have a what are they called?
00:31:21.990 --> 00:31:24.993
I wanted to say Kickstarter, but it's not.
00:31:24.993 --> 00:31:35.715
It's like one of those apps that you can continue to donate and we just keep it open all the time, and so folks can, and all of that goes right into the scholarship fund.
00:31:35.715 --> 00:31:44.884
The fund, at this point, is just my donated money because I feel passionate about it, so I cover all of the tuitions for for all of our scholarships.
00:31:44.884 --> 00:31:46.288
So I cover all of the tuitions for all of our scholarships.
00:31:46.288 --> 00:31:51.159
But we also have a swag shop and 100% of the proceeds of our swag shop.
00:31:51.159 --> 00:31:58.439
So if anybody buys a sweatshirt or water bottle, mug, anything like that, all the profits also go into the scholarship fund.
00:31:58.439 --> 00:32:09.505
Yes, of course, of course, oh, of course, of course, oh, my God.
00:32:28.744 --> 00:32:47.911
To talk about briefly how doula work actually is transformative for the doula, I think we introduced group therapy, like free therapy, to the program because we noticed how the information is for people who say, learn about informed consent, or learn that they never had to take their pants off in labor, or that they learn that they experienced medical racism, because they just always felt like something had happened but they didn't know.
00:32:47.911 --> 00:32:56.786
Oh, I didn't know, we shouldn't cry it out, and that everybody just told me to, or like I was misinformed or I was lied to or whatever those things are.
00:32:56.786 --> 00:33:06.815
As we go through the program, my goal is to have doulas the student doulas, doulas in training have this like transformation for themselves.
00:33:06.815 --> 00:33:14.006
So like my goal is actually to empower women and queer folks and I chose to do it through the vehicle of doula training.
00:33:14.006 --> 00:33:23.513
But I want people at the end of the training to have a better understanding, socially and politically, of the environment that they live within.
00:33:23.513 --> 00:34:13.974
And so we have people come into the program that are like haven't heard a lot of the language that we use, they don't really know about inclusive language outside of, like the obnoxious performative things that they might hear out in the world, but by the end of it have had some shift to understand their own personal biases, to have an understanding of like a reconnection with humanity which I know seems like way out there, but we've done it so intentionally that at the end you're just like I feel like I have more love for myself and for people out there and to also have an assessment of the environment that they are existing within, because when a lot of women and queer folks most women and queer folks have some kind of precarity or lack of safety in their environment, it might be within their family of origin, it might be within their primary relationship or their partnership.
00:34:13.974 --> 00:34:19.815
It's for sure out in the world we're not safe, which is why we carry our keys between our knuckles when we get in our cars.
00:34:19.815 --> 00:34:32.836
We're not safe and to have a better understanding of safety first for us and then we're able to provide that really amazing care and honestly, becoming a doula, it made me a better parent.
00:34:32.836 --> 00:34:34.090
It made me a better human.
00:34:34.090 --> 00:34:40.016
I've allowed it to be this vehicle for my own healing and I'm not alone in this.
00:34:40.016 --> 00:34:41.005
We have lots of students.
00:34:41.005 --> 00:34:50.690
I would say the majority of students leave being like I'm just, I know I've transformed and then going out and advocating for other people.
00:34:50.690 --> 00:34:53.418
It's such powerful care work.
00:34:53.418 --> 00:35:15.773
So I think that I want people to know you can make it whatever you want out of it, but we teach you that it's a place that can actually fill your cup and empower you to make potentially changes in your own life, whatever that looks like, but be able to help and heal yourself and then go out and do this there's also it can be quite profitable.
00:35:15.773 --> 00:35:19.929
So I want to talk pragmatically, because it's all great that you're like cool, my heart will be lighter.
00:35:19.929 --> 00:35:28.010
But it is a business and so you know there's a few ways that you can get paid as a doula, which is an important element of it.
00:35:28.130 --> 00:35:30.780
I believe birth work should be compensated.
00:35:30.780 --> 00:35:34.510
I also believe every person deserves a birth worker.
00:35:34.510 --> 00:35:41.057
There's a gap that I think systems and society needs to fill, because I know that we can get pulled into this.
00:35:41.057 --> 00:35:44.467
Well, if everybody needs a birth worker, how can you be charging for this?
00:35:44.467 --> 00:35:46.992
I also deserve to make a living wage.
00:35:46.992 --> 00:35:54.931
So we talk very candidly about that, that there is a gap between these two truths and like, how do we bridge that gap?
00:35:54.931 --> 00:35:57.177
And so we support in some of that bridging.
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