BEBO MIA INC.
is fiercely committed to our mission of connecting you to your intrinsic value and power, and more importantly, bebo mia is fiercely committed to ensuring all bodies feel represented, seen & cared for.
We provide inclusive and accessible trainings that provide the skills needed to grow and sustain a lucrative business while bridging the gap between birthing people and health care professionals.
THE STORY OF
bebo mia inc.
The story of bebo mia begins with Bianca. As a new parent living in an unsafe situation, with no support and under-resourced while dealing with postpartum depression, Bianca needed to change her life – and looked to doula training as a way to build a business while supporting other birthers who struggled before, during or after a birth.
Having started out hopeful and looking to change the world (or at least the lives of future clients), after her weekend training Bianca was left with a sinking feeling in her stomach and the overwhelming thought, ‘What now?!’.
Out in the big world of reproductive health, Bianca discovered her training hadn’t actually prepared her to run a business. The business training she did have didn’t feel applicable to her new doula business and she had very few connections within the birth community.
How would she create connections with other birth workers? Who was going to support HER when she stepped into a birth space for the very first time?
THE NEED FOR SUPPORT AND CONNECTION FORMED THE FOUNDATION OF BEBO MIA …
While trying to figure out her business, Bianca was quickly learning about the disparity of care given to birthers and their families. She saw first-hand the shaming and manipulation, the disregard for already marginalized families from BIPOC and 2slgbtq communities, and the silencing and traumatization of birthers by the medical system.
Something had to change
born out of necessity bebo mia has grown into
a thriving community!
From the beginning, one thing was clear - for the most part, folks were not being set up for success when having babies. And there was lots of room to get creative with fertility, birth and postpartum education and training. Bianca's superpower is her grit. When she has a vision with a goal in mind, she puts her head down and keeps pushing forward, moving towards it and then beyond.
With determination (and a lot of mistakes, loss and grief), bebo mia has grown from the first doula agency in Toronto into an effective doula training organization with a strong, skilled team offering comprehensive birth worker trainings that support all families as they create their families through birth.
From the bricks and mortar space of the early training program, to today’s program delivered exclusively online, the team created a program that offered education and connection. In the current digital space, people from around the world join the programs, sharing their culture and wisdom. Today, we have students in 40 countries!
bebo mia wouldn’t be what it is without the voices and live experiences of an amazing team of experts.
Meet the team!
Meet the bebo mia team! These are the FOLKS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LINE WHEN YOU ARE HANGING OUT WITH BEBO MIA.
Ms. Charlotte
(she/her)
Kelly Williams (she/her)
MARISSA BOLAÑOS
(she/her)
Bianca Sprague (she/her)
Vickiana
Pena
ANA SOFIA LUNA
(she/her)
Khessia Rachelle Nabali
Brogan Drew
Emily Ferris
(she/her)
Michelle Black
Linda Marmolejos
(she/her)
Aren Czernin
WORKING IN A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO BREAK US!
We used to say the system is broken - now we know it has been perfectly designed to keep us from connecting to our purpose and power.
We wanted to create a space that felt safe for everyone, including those in marginalized communities. The business models we were being taught felt out of alignment - and quite frankly yucky! They were solidifying a system that was part of the problem. We scraped all the 'hustle' culture and decided to run our business based on the values we hold as an anti-oppressive, anti-racist, trauma-informed and intersectional feminist business.
We wanted to create an organization where all bodies and all people would be represented and honoured. We wanted to create an organization that embodied holistic advocacy. We are the first doula training organization to remove gendered language from our teaching manuals & slides. We are proud to be a doula certification that acknowledges the land we are on at the beginning of our programs and followed it up by connecting with Indigenous communities to learn about what needs we can fulfill as a training organization. And we are the only doula training that offers online group trauma processing therapy to support our students as they process their own trauma(s) while learning.
Business Training is a
Must!
For those birth workers who already completed training and wanted a business jump start, we created a one of a kind business program, Birth Worker Business School to support and mentor birth workers & other perinatal professionals.
And we
love it!
Although our business has expanded to include more programs and continuing education we have not lost sight of the importance of nurturing and loving each and every person that chooses to learn with us. We truly want to connect folx to their intrinsic value and power.
We don’t want anyone to leave their training feeling lost and overwhelmed, or worse, give up. We never want to see another birth worker (or any other fertility/birth/postpartum professional) give up because they don’t have the support they need. And most importantly, we want to change the birth landscape, around the world. The current systems we are working within were not designed to put the birther first. We are dedicated to educating and mentoring birth workers that will affect positive change, and will do so minding & mending the gap between families and health care providers. We love, love, love getting up each morning and doing this work. We cannot imagine doing anything else that would feel as rewarding or meaningful as this.