Support Team

JustBirth Space Connectors

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Akirah Crawford believes that each woman is born with an innate power that transcends beyond what we can articulate in words. It’s what makes us magical. As a doula, Akirah is only a shepherd to people as they journey into parenthood and she believes the experience should be as beautiful and empowering as possible. ​Akirah believes childbearing people are the experts of their own lives and have the right and the freedom to have a birthing experience that reflects that. Akirah hopes to support each person on their unique and individual spiritual journey to parenthood in a way that enables them to realize their deepest strengths. I invite you to tap into your power and believe in your intuition.                                       

Akirah is a proud native of Newark, NJ. She was trained as a doula through Ancient Song Doula Services in Brooklyn, NY. Outside of doula work Akirah enjoys learning about herbs, traveling, cooking delicious plant based recipes and spending time with family and friends.

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Anabel Rivera (Ella/She/Her)
Originating from Borikén, Puerto Rico, a full-spectrum doula and childbirth educator dedicates their career to serving the Hispanic community with a deep-seated passion for equitable access to pregnancy support, education, and care. Embodying more than just a profession, their work represents a fervent advocacy for holistic, culturally sensitive perinatal health, deeply rooted in the rich cultural of her heritage. This commitment stems from a personal understanding of the diverse needs of expectant and new parents, fueled by their own experiences as a parent of two. They skillfully combine traditional practices with modern techniques, providing comprehensive, compassionate care. At the heart of their practice is an unyielding dedication to creating a nurturing, inclusive environment that respects and integrates the unique cultural perspectives and traditions of pregnancy and childbirth.

Recognized as a catalyst for change and a beacon of hope in the community, they empower families to embrace their heritage and confidently navigate the complexities of pregnancy and birth. Their mission is to dismantle barriers to doula care, ensuring that every expectant parent, irrespective of background, receives the necessary support. As an integral part of a movement towards accessible, culturally attuned perinatal care, they are committed to shaping a more inclusive future for perinatal health. Proudly representing their Puerto Rican identity, they honor their role in this transformative endeavor, striving to make a lasting impact in the community they serve.

Briani George (She/Her)

Briani is a certified birth and postpartum doula from Brooklyn, a certified lactation counselor and placenta encapsulator. She has been supporting families for almost six years and is humbled by every opportunity that she is given to do so. She loves to talk about birth options and preparing for the postpartum period. When she is not doulaing you can find her either cooking, eating, or singing.

Charline Ogbeni

Charline Ogbeni (She/Her/Queen)

Charline is a School Counselor, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), Certified Breastfeeding Specialist (CBS), and Full Spectrum Doula. She is the owner of Supporting Our Mothers Initiative, LLC based in Queens, NY.

Supporting Our Mothers Initiative, LLC addresses the needs of birthing and breastfeeding individuals in Queens. Her future goals include starting a nonprofit benefiting breastfeeding individuals and establishing a Birth Center in Queens, NY.

Charline Ogbeni is most proud to be a mother of an exclusively breastfed baby born during a world pandemic.

Christine Miller (She/Her)

Christine is a certified spiritual herbalist, community doula and mother born in the South. Her primary focus is to assist those with finding their individual voices, returning to self through herbal support, ancestral reverence and Reproductive Justice. When she’s not playing around with her 5 year old daughter, you can find her deep in the woods foraging herbs or making herbal medicines to share outwardly with her communities.

She dreams of the day when holistic wellness is accessible to the BIPOC community at large all over the world and has begun this mission through her business Beloved Birth Village.

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Erica Livingston (She/Her)

Erica is a postpartum centric full spectrum doula, educator, doula mentor and co-founder of Birdsong Doulas. Erica has been serving the birth and parenting community since 2013. She’s served 1000+ families in the pregnancy, birth and postpartum period and still feels the immense joy she felt the very first time.

Before having babies, she worked in the New York theater community and still uses her comedy, writing and performing skills to support and educate families in the funnest way possible. Erica is also a certified herbalist and breathwork practitioner. She is a proud mama herself of two loving wild little boys.

She loves cooking, making herbal medicines, rainbows and laughing, like deep belly snorting laughing. She's happiest when she’s roller skating or when her hands are dirty in the garden. She’s currently beginning a new adventure of traveling full time with her family.

Kira Birney (She/They)

Kira is a Brooklyn-based parent doula artist. Each role influences each other and provides Kira with a holistic, grounded and intuitive approach toward community support. Kira is a trained and certified postpartum doula.

In addition, she has been mentored by Chanel Porchia of Ancient Song and Erica Livingston and Laura Interlandi of Birdsong.

LaShanda Dandrich is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and co- founder of the worker-owner cooperative, Uptown Village Cooperative.

After the birth of her daughter in 2009, her passion for breastfeeding and supporting families in the postpartum period blossomed. She became a trained postpartum doula while pursuing her IBCLC credential.

She has supported families of all diverse, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds throughout NYC. She resides in Harlem with her 10 year old daughter.

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Lucia Roderique (She/They)

Lucia is a queer Full Spectrum Doula and comes to her practice of support through the Reproductive Justice framework, centering Black, Indigenous, and people of color. She provides support free of judgement and trusts in people's bodies and choices. Her calm, confident attitude helps to keep her clients informed and centered at any point through out their reproductive life.

She is CPR-certified and received her Birth Doula training from DONA International, Postpartum Doula training from Birdsong Brooklyn, and specialized LGBT Support training from Morgane Richardson, just to name a few! She is a Certified Nurse Midwife.

 
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Mariana Lima-Espada is an Indigenous full spectrum doula and multidisciplinary artist from Borikén (Puerto Rico). She was inspired to become a doula by her grandmother who was a natural healer, doula and poet back home. Mariana completed her full spectrum doula training with Ancient Song Doula Services, and has a Reiki certification from her island. She is currently studying Kemetic natural healing at The Earth Center M’Tam School of Traditional African Philosophy and Spirituality. Her decolonizing work consists of using music, energetic healing, sound meditation, aromatherapy and other natural indigenous tools to help combat postcolonial trauma.

It is an honor for her to be of service to women who are the backbone of society and the portals of life before, during, and after pregnancy. She works from a reproductive justice framework, advocates for everyone’s right to make choices about their own bodies and lives, and understands the importance of bodily autonomy. Her objective is to give people the guidance they need to get to know and understand their own strength and power.

 

Co-Directors

 
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Chanel Porchia-Albert

Co-Director, Director of Equity and Program Strategy

Commissioner Chanel L. Porchia Albert CD, CPD, CLC, CHHC is the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Ancient Song Doula Services, a reproductive health organization of over 70 full-spectrum community-based doulas focused on providing resources and full-spectrum doula services to women of color and marginalized communities throughout NYC and Northern New Jersey. Her work within infant and maternal health have led her across the globe to Uganda where she has served as a maternal health strategist in rural war-torn areas to address the lack of resources to birthing mothers. She is a certified lactation counselor, midwifery assistant, and vegan chef who has served on various advisory boards throughout the country. Her work in birth and reproductive justice continues to span into the research and methods of care of marginalized people and people of color bringing a human rights framework into birthing rooms and beyond into institutional reform and accountability measures within healthcare to address implicit bias and racism. 

She has served as a consultant for AMCHP, NYC Department of Health in Mental Hygiene and assisted in the creation of the Respectful Care at Birth document, and other healthcare institutions engaging providers in birth justice. She also serves on the advisory board at Ariadne Labs at Harvard Medical School, Board of Directors for March for Moms, Board Member of The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery and Village Birth Intl. Chanel and Ancient Song's work is featured on CNN’s Champions for Change, the cover of Working Mother Magazine, NY Times, SELF Magazine, and more. Most recently she has been appointed by Mayor DeBlasio as a Commissioner to the NYC Commission on Gender Equity and Advisory Board Member for Marymount College School of Politics & Human Rights. When she is not working on legislative policy or facilitating workshops, you can find her spending time with her six children.

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Aimee Brill

Co-Director, Director of Program Development and Advising

Aimée Brill is a facilitator, consultant, trainer, birth justice activist, and is the Co-Director of VBI. Through collaboration and partnership, her work has been devoted to creating equitable frameworks that uplift and center reproductive justice and human rights in childbirth.

She has been practicing as a perinatal health professional providing local, national, and international advocacy, consultancy, mentorship, community doula trainings, and education since 2003. Aimée facilitates workshops and provides consulting services for organizations and institutions committed to examining whiteness and implementing equitable models into their frameworks and partnerships.

In 2011, along with Co-Director, Asteir Bey, VBI created the first community-based doula training in Syracuse, New York. Since 2006, VBI’s collective action has included working with midwives to implement a Ugandan-led mobile midwifery clinic which offers midwifery care and services to communities in northern Uganda.

She co-authored and collaborated with Ancient Song Doula Services and Every Mother Counts, on a paper entitled:  Advancing Birth Justice: Community-Based Doula Models of Care for Ending Racial Disparities which focused on the vital role that community-based doula models need to have in order to ensure success with Medicaid reimbursement.

She is honored to serve as Co-Director with JustBirth Space and be in partnership and collaboration with an incredible team of folx dedicated to birth justice. She has a love for liberation and for cultivation both with people and nature and lives with her partner and three children, two cats, and their new pandemic puppy, in western NJ.

Partners

 
 
 
 

Our Referral Partners

Our referral partners are community-based organizations, maternity care providers, public health organizations, hospitals, and more, with whom we collaborate to connect JustBirth Space clients to the support they need. These partners share our vision for putting respectful care and ending racial disparities in maternal health as front and center in our collective work.

Interesting in becoming a JustBirth Space referral partner? Email info@justbirthspace.org to learn more.

 
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