Where We Have Been, Where We Are Going, and Why We Need You

The story of Wombs of the World Foundation and the global movement we are building together

Most maternal deaths are preventable. And for every person who dies during pregnancy or childbirth, an estimated 20 to 30 more experience injuries, infections, or disabilities, sometimes with lifelong consequences.

But statistics tell only part of the story.

They do not capture the mother laboring access to water, or the nurse-midwife caring for several patients at once without the equipment or continuing education she deserves. The family whose birth becomes traumatic because no one had the time, training, or tools to offer compassionate support. Or the traditional midwife carrying generations of knowledge that the modern world too often overlooks.

They also do not capture the extraordinary power already present in communities around the world: skilled birthworkers, committed healthcare providers, wise elders, determined families, and local leaders who know what their communities need and are working every day to create change.

Wombs of the World Foundation exists to stand beside them.

How We Got Here

Wombs of the World began in 2018 with a belief that still guides everything we do: culture is dynamic, and birth is universal.

Through international educational programs, we began bringing birthworkers together across countries and cultures to learn from one another. We witnessed the brilliance of traditional midwives in Ecuador, the skill and perseverance of frontline maternity-care providers in Tanzania, and the ways that birthworkers everywhere are finding creative, deeply human ways to care for families.

Those experiences changed us. They also made something very clear: learning from a community creates a responsibility to invest in that community.

The people and places that welcomed us were never simply program destinations. They became our teachers, partners, colleagues, and friends. We wanted to build a structure that could direct resources back into the communities sharing so much with us and support the priorities local leaders identified for themselves.

That is why the Wombs of the World Foundation was established in 2023 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The Foundation is the philanthropic arm of our larger Wombs of the World ecosystem. It mobilizes donations, grants, sponsorships, and in-kind support to fund community-led maternal-health projects, provider education, scholarships, medical equipment, infrastructure, and the preservation of traditional birth knowledge.

This model is rooted in reciprocity. We do not enter communities assuming that we have all the answers. We begin by listening. We build long-term relationships. We ask local partners what would make the greatest difference, and then we work together to make it possible.

What We Have Built Together

Over the years, the Wombs of the World community has grown from a beautiful idea into an international network of birthworkers, educators, healthcare professionals, traditional midwives, advocates, and supporters.

In Tanzania, our relationships have deepened through years of collaboration with hospitals, clinics, providers, and community leaders. Together, we have helped provide water filters, a portable ultrasound machine, fetal dopplers, oxygen concentrators, neonatal equipment, menstrual-health supplies, and other essential resources.

In 2025, we helped deliver a neonatal CPAP machine to Changarawe Hospital, expanding the care available to newborns in respiratory distress.

In 2026, we launched the first Art of Labor Method training in Tanzania. Over three days, 53 providers from seven hospitals and clinics came together to study physiological labor support, respectful communication, patient autonomy, practical comfort measures, and evidence-based maternity care. The method is grounded in the International Childbirth Initiative's 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful MotherBaby-Family Maternity Care and adapted in collaboration with local healthcare leaders.

This training was about more than transferring information. It was about helping providers reconnect with what first called many of them into this work: the opportunity to protect life, reduce suffering, and care for families with skill and humanity.

In Ecuador, we have built relationships with traditional Kichwa midwives whose work holds generations of clinical, cultural, spiritual, and ecological knowledge. We have supported access to equipment and collaborated on projects designed to preserve and share traditional approaches to pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care on the community's own terms.

This matters because improving maternal health cannot mean replacing one system of knowledge with another. The future of birth must make room for clinical evidence, ancestral wisdom, cultural identity, and lived experience to inform one another.

Across our work, we have supported educational access for birthworkers, helped connect providers across borders, and created spaces where people who care deeply about birth can learn, collaborate, and imagine something better together.

None of this has been accomplished alone. It has been made possible by local partners who trust us, birthworkers who share their knowledge, volunteers who give their time, and donors who believe that better birth is worth investing in.

Where We Are Going

We are proud of what we have built, but we also know we are only at the beginning.

Our next chapter is about moving from meaningful individual projects to lasting, locally sustained change.

In Tanzania, we plan to expand the Art of Labor Method and develop a train-the-trainer model so local providers can teach, adapt, and carry the work forward within their own hospitals and communities. We want to help facilities create birth environments that support physiology and dignity, while investing in clean water, sanitation, essential equipment, and safer maternity and neonatal spaces.

We are developing the Karatu Gentle Birth Initiative, a long-term effort designed to bring education, infrastructure, and continuous labor support together. The vision includes more dignified birth spaces, practical improvements such as water and sanitation, stronger prenatal preparation, and locally embedded doula support.

In Ecuador, we hope to deepen our investment in traditional midwives and community-led spaces where ancestral knowledge can be practiced, documented, taught, and passed forward. We want the people who have protected this wisdom for generations to have the resources and recognition needed to determine its future.

Across all of our programs, we plan to expand scholarships, mentorship, and educational access for birthworkers and maternal-health leaders. We will continue creating opportunities for nurses, midwives, physicians, doulas, students, traditional birthkeepers, and educators to learn across disciplines and cultures.

We are also growing a global movement. Through our international partnerships, educational programs, podcast, and the 2027 Wombs of the World Summit in Mexico City, we are creating spaces where birthworkers can build relationships, share knowledge, challenge harmful norms, and return home better equipped to lead change.

The potential is enormous. A provider who learns a more respectful and effective way to support labor may care for thousands of families over the course of a career. A local trainer can influence an entire hospital. A clean-water system can protect every person who enters a clinic. A scholarship can place life-changing knowledge into the hands of a birthworker who will carry it into their community for decades.

This is how change grows: one birthworker, one facility, one relationship, and one birth at a time.

Why We Need Your Help

For the Foundation to grow responsibly, we need more than enthusiasm. We need a community willing to invest in the long-term future of this work.

In our earliest years, we kept our structure lean and volunteer-driven so that the funds entrusted to us could go directly into projects and community impact. We are deeply proud of that foundation. Now, the opportunities in front of us have outgrown what a small team can sustain through determination alone.

The next phase requires reliable funding for both programs and the infrastructure that makes those programs effective: local leadership, coordination, evaluation, partnership development, legal and financial stewardship, educational materials, and the people who hold all of these relationships with care.

Sustainability is not separate from impact. It is what allows impact to continue.

Your support can help us:

• Train frontline maternity-care providers in compassionate, evidence-based care.

• Develop local trainers who can sustain and expand the Art of Labor Method.

• Improve access to clean water, sanitation, medical equipment, and dignified birth spaces.

• Support traditional and Indigenous midwives in preserving and teaching ancestral knowledge.

• Provide scholarships and mentorship to emerging birthworkers and maternal-health leaders.

• Bring global birthworkers together for reciprocal learning and collective action.

• Build the operational capacity needed to steward this work responsibly into 2027 and beyond.

There is a place for everyone in this movement. You can make a one-time gift, become a monthly donor, commit to multi-year support, fund a specific project, donate equipment or professional expertise, sponsor an educational initiative, or introduce us to someone who may believe in this mission.

Whether your gift is $35 or $35,000, it becomes part of something much larger: a growing global commitment to safer birth, stronger birthworkers, healthier families, and care rooted in dignity.

Help Us Build What Comes Next

We believe birth can be more than something people survive.

It can be safe. It can be informed. It can be culturally meaningful. It can be compassionate. It can be an experience in which a person feels respected, supported, and fully human.

We also believe that the people already doing this work deserve investment. Birthworkers deserve education, tools, community, and respect. Healthcare providers deserve the resources to offer the kind of care they know families need. Traditional midwives deserve to have their knowledge protected, valued, and carried forward. Local leaders deserve partners who listen and stay.

Wombs of the World Foundation is building toward that future, but we cannot build it alone.

If you believe that birth matters, that dignity matters, and that locally led change can transform maternal health, we invite you to join us.

Donate. Partner. Sponsor. Share our work. Introduce us to someone who can help.

Together, we can strengthen the people who make better birth possible and help create a world where every family is met with skilled, compassionate, and culturally respectful care.

Because culture is dynamic. Birth is universal. And the future of maternal health belongs to all of us.

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