Ashle’ Tate – “Intersectional or Bust” Award Doula Scholarship Winner March 2022

Written by Ashle’ Tate

Doula Scholarship Winner March 2022

Ashle’ Tate – “Intersectional or Bust” Award Doula Scholarship Winner March 2022

Wooohoo! I’m so thrilled and honored to be a part of this community, being a scholarship winner is such a blessing and dream come true. My name is Ashle’ and I use she/her pronouns. I was born in Denver, Colorado and live in Washington, DC with my pup and my partner. I was awarded the Intersectional or Bust award. I have always had a passion for social justice and equity. I’ve been able to work toward social justice through my work as a classroom teacher but for as long as I can remember I’ve been called towards birth work. My earliest memories with birth, babies and parenting come from supporting my older sisters through their pregnancies. While I don’t have any children myself, my desire to finally pursue certification and education were born from witnessing and hearing the stories of women in my family who experienced so much trauma, pain, sacrifice, and misinformation during their birthing and postpartum journeys and from seeing the impact of the maternal healthcare gaps that exist within my community. It is my unshakeable belief that everyone is worthy of a birthing process that is evidence-based, honors their wants and needs, centers informed consent, and is true to their identities.

Many of the folks in my life have shared with me the stories of their experiences with fertility, loss, birthing, and postpartum mood disorders and sooo many of them talk about how they could have benefitted from a doula but either didn’t know it was an option or could have never afforded to hire one. Beyond that, I have seen the sharp impact of reproductive injustice in the communities I teach and live in. In my community there are no hospitals, no trauma centers, no maternal health care centers or services. This is so baffling and so infuriating, especially when I think about how this decision is rooted in racism and injustice on so many levels.

More about Doula Scholarship here!

It sounds super cliché but I wanted to become the winner of scholarship to be a community healer. I believe that having access to an informed, evidence-based, safe, and culturally responsive birthing journey has generational impacts that benefit the community as a whole. I want to be a maternal support practitioner because I am committed to standing lovingly and fiercely in the gap that sometimes exists between BIPOC clients and medical systems. I am committed to speaking up, holding and demanding space for their desires and wishes. I also want to hold space for curiosity and questions.I want to advocate for trauma informed care and decrease the use of interventions. Beyond that as a proud nerd, I personally love learning and research and as a teacher I love translating what I’ve learned in ways that are engaging and digestible to all. I think that I’ve stayed in an education space because I love being able to facilitate learning, share information, but also offer emotional support for the leaders, children, and college students that I work with. Becoming a birth worker feels like heart work! I’ve looked into other certification programs and none of them felt quite right. I didn’t want to take a euro-centric heteronormative approach to this work. I really wanted to find a space where I could learn about becoming a birth worker as a proud fat Black queer neurodivergent woman from a limited income background who wants to provide services to others who live in the margins and intersections of multiple equity seeking identities/groups.

When I found bebo mia it felt too good to be true and in just the few weeks I’ve been in the MSP program it has felt like home. I had no idea that I would feel such an incredible sense of belonging here in the MSP program. Each week I’ve been struck by the engagement, knowledge, relatability and vulnerability of the phenomenal instructors, the support and community co-created by my classmates in the program, and the wealth of resources and support offered. I feel like I’m not here by mistake and that I’m exactly where I should be, seriously so grateful for this opportunity!

After finishing the program and getting my certification my dream is to open a holistic wellness where my clients can get one-one-one doula services, childbirth workshops, support groups and nature wellness retreats.

I want to my services to have a focus on the intersectional experiences that many equity seeking individuals face.

Thank you again for this amazing opportunity, it is truly an honor to be in this community and I can’t wait to pay it forward and impact my community in big ways!

Much love and big hugs,

Ashle’