African Birth Collective is a non-profit organization that has grown out of the need for greater safety and empowerment of women in their birth experiences and a desire to bridge the gap between traditional and modern midwifery.

• We are international midwives, doulas and birth activists working together in Sénégal, West Africa to exchange ideas and midwifery skills. 
   
• We use donated supplies, equipment and funds to supply clinics that have little or no supplies of their own, and to translate educational materials into French and Wolof.
   
• We are devoted to the reintroduction of indigenous medicines and herbs in safe and appropriate ways, and to nutritional education programs based on traditional foods.
   
• We support greater access to preventative health care, which at the village level often includes education about the foods and medicines of the earth and their sustainable use, as access to modern medical resources can be intermittent.
   
• We hold a sacred space of individualized woman-centered care, in a place where midwives are generally taught “protocol” and an increasing standardization of care that often includes unnecessary interventions and medications. We encourage the understanding that birth is normal, and not a medical pathology to be treated with drugs and surgery except in rare complications.
   
• We believe in honoring and embracing what is most valuable and personal about traditional midwifery and marrying it with the best of what modern technology can offer us.

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