Jill’s Story

Born and raised in Carmel, CA, Jill was exposed to multicultural influences while traveling with her British-born mother throughout her youth. Her experiences in Great Britain, Europe, and Mexico would prove to be the perfect foundation for her career work as a midwife.

Jill found her calling in 1996 as an advocate for pregnant and birthing women. She eventually moved on to become a licensed midwife and a graduate of The National Midwifery Institute. She has been active in the birthing communities around the United States and the world. She has worked in California, New York, and Virginia (where she served Mennonite families), and she traveled to Brazil working in high-volume birth clinics for the underserved.

With the goal of attending births, improving birthing conditions, and contributing to the education and empowerment of impoverished women, Jill found herself on her way to Senegal in 2009. There she started working with the midwives and traditional birth attendants in the village of Kafountine. Nothing could have prepared her for the conditions and poor treatment of laboring women, or the outdated birthing practices that frequently ended tragically, with a permanently injured mother and baby - or even worse - loss of life. There was no reproductive health education or birthing classes in place and contraceptive services were scarce. Fast-forward to today, Jill has come together with the Kafountine community and successfully built and operates an educational center, a women's health/family planning clinic, and a new birth center.