This event is a virtual program with the option of viewing it virtually in person at the Jesup and registration is required to attend either in person or on Zoom.

Please join the Mount Desert Island Racial Equity Working Group for a conversation on the history and current issues surrounding racial injustice and birthing as experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color and rural populations here in Maine. Through presentation and panel discussion with healthcare providers and users, we will examine, listen to, and learn about how those most historically disenfranchised and discriminated against experience pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care here in Maine. There will be time for audience questions and participation. We will hear from healthcare providers from Maine as well as a provider from Serene Journey Doulas.

Bios

Linda Robinson is a nurse-midwife in Bar Harbor, Maine where she was one of the founders of the Women’s Health Center in 1993. She worked in a women’s health practice for thirty-five years, caring for women in all walks of life. Her international work has taken her to Malawi Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer; to American Samoa where she started the first midwifery practice; and to the Democratic Republic of Congo with Doctors without Borders. She is the author of Sunday Morning Shamwana, A Midwife’s Letters From the Field, and has co-authored two other books, Being Pregnant, A Woman’s Answer Book, and Women’s Sexual Health. From 2016-2019 she worked in Malawi with the Global Health Service Partnership teaching midwifery at the Kamuzu College of Nursing, and has applied for a Fulbright Grant to continue that work in 2024. Linda is the mother of five children and has lived on MDI since 1992.

My name is Theresa Daniels-Hemphill, I'm the spouse to an active duty member of the US Coast Guard, currently stationed in Puerto Rico where I serve as an ombudsman to my wife's cutter. I'm a biracial mother of two girls, the youngest of whom was born while stationed in Maine in 2021. My experience with birth care there was a catalyst for my desire to pursue a path into midwifery and another avenue to continue my activism and advocacy for POC.

Donna Smith has served her community for over six years as a fertility specialist, a birth doula and a postpartum doula witnessing over fifty births. Donna's own birth trauma is what led her to this work where she gives her clients trauma informed plans of care. Donna received her Bachelors of Neuroscience from George Mason University, in Fairfax VA where she currently resides and was trained by the prominent Black midwife, Shafia Monroe, with the International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC). The major focus of Donna's work is to help combat poor maternal health occurrences in Black and Brown communities through advocacy and education. Donna is also certified in Reiki for birth workers and Crystal Therapy.