Root members : the folks who keep RLBC running

​Kai Ayo Z. Shatteen (they/them/theirs/she/her/hers) - is a Black, Queer Birthworker with a deep commitment to ending the injustice that puts BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) and LGBTQIA communities at the bottom when it comes to positive birth outcomes. For Kai this work is an answer to Ancestral calling, not a career, and they are guided by their Ancestors daily. Kai is an Apprentice Midwife, Placenta Encapsulation Specialist, and Herbal Medicine Maker, as well as a Birth & Postpartum Consultant. Currently they are the Client Intake Director for the Roots of Labor Birth Collective and they have the joy of parenting two young adults!​
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​Starr Britt (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs) - Starr is committed to working to promote birthing and reproductive justice, and to achieving new heights in holistic Black and Indigenous maternal, infant, and adolescent vitality by incorporating Indigenous cultural arts and healing modalities, such as culturally affirming culinary meals, bodywork/touch, herbal medicine, and story-sharing to prevent and help heal pregnancy and postpartum mood diseases. Her lived experience thriving after sexual and intimate partner violence inspires her to cultivate and center birthing joy to disrupt the negative narratives surrounding BIPOC maternal health and build sustainable systems within the birthing workforce and for birthing people and families through her training, strategies, workshops, projects, and programs. As the Director of Sustainability with the collective, she provides the leadership team with invaluable knowledge acquired through her many years of varied experience in reproductive health with BIPOC.  In the reproductive sphere, her work is grounded in and guided by the abundant knowledge that exists within Black birthing and parenting communities. She provides access to full-spectrum doula services to birthing people to provide them with spaces for healing and affirmation, as well as development and organizational consulting to nonprofits and entrepreneurs seeking to challenge dominant narratives in an effort to advocate for new policies and fundraise for good.​


​Jewel Buchanan-Boone (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs) - is a Queer Black doula, artivist, and event producer who resides in Oakland, California. As a full spectrum-doula, Jewel is committed to providing culturally attuned care & creating brave birthing spaces for Black womxn and Queer and Trans families. In addition to her private doula practice, Jewel is a member of Roots of Labor Birth Collective and a Dance Baby Down instructor. Her work is deeply rooted in the liberation of Black people through celebrating  Black womxnhood, reclaiming Black personhood, and reclaiming ancestral birthing traditions. To collaborate on a birth or project, contact her via email at Birth@jewelbb.com
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Cassandra Chase (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs) - is a Black Queer full spectrum birthworker from the Bay Area, working on her degree in Psychology and becoming a Lactation Consultant. Supporting families during such a sacred time has been her passion for the last six years. Cassandra wants to give families the tools they need in order to make informed decisions during and after labor while setting up a solid foundation for families to be healthy and happy. When she is not attending births, Cassandra can be seen crocheting and gardening. She is RLBC's Co-Doula Coordinator and the Co-Director of Inmate Support Services for RLBC's Santa Rita Jail support program.​

​Appuni Chemmachel (they/them/theirs) - Appuni is a doula with roots in the Bay Area and South India. They are a student and practitioner of plant medicine, and invest primarily in care work that centers QTBIPOC, non-normative family structures, survivors, and neurodiverse people. 

Ajira Darch (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs) - is a Queer, fat, Black mama of two. She is passionate about parenting, connecting and building community. These passions and all she's learned through them inform and guide her work as a podcast host, ceremony facilitator, birth & branding photographer, full spectrum birthworker and business and branding consultant to birthworkers across the country.
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​el lee (she/her/hers) - is a birthworker and full-spectrum advocate for compassionate, dignified care which centers the journey of spirit through birth, pregnancy loss, abortion, incarceration, or gender transition. She is a part RLBC's Santa Rita Jail doula project, is a certified doula through both RLBC and the second cohort of QT Birthwerq Project, is at the beginning stages of learning plant medicine, and believes wholeheartedly in active systems change through abolition and decolonization. You can find out more about her through her practice's website, moongather.org
Rebecca Orozco (they/them/theirs/she/her/hers) - is Queer Xicana Full-Spectrum Doula, tenderly supporting individuals & families through Birth, Death, and Life's many other in-betweens. She came into this work in 2015, following several years of intimately supporting families as an Early Childhood Educator. She believes strongly in working collectively to heal, learn, remember ancestral traditions, and radically revision our meanings of community. She organizes closely with Roots of Labor Birth Collective, is an active resident of the Bay Area Community Land Trust, and a humble student of Indigenous Permaculture.
​Keelia Willison Alder (she/her/hers/they/them/theirs) - is a Queer mixed-race Asian-American birthworker who grew up in Kampala, Uganda. She comes from four generations of reproductive justice advocates, from her great-grandmother providing doula support in China, to her grandmother opening the first prenatal diagnosis lab in NYC, to her mom teaching childbirth ed in their living room when Keelia was a toddler. Becoming a full-spectrum doula in 2015 was the most natural thing in the world for her, and she has since supported hundreds of families through their reproductive and parenting journeys. She currently parents her own new little one, and helps out the Roots however she can while the baby naps. You can learn more about her at doulakeelia.com
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PollinatorS & Former Members

RLBC Photographer: Linda Jones - is a Birth and Postpartum Doula and mother of two, grandmother of three and great-grandmother of one, who lives in Oakland, CA. She founded and owned Waddle and Swaddle Baby Boutique and Resource Center in Berkeley, CA and has been a part of the natural birth advocacy community in the Bay Area for over two decades. She is one of the co-founders of Black Women Birthing Justice She was one of the founders of a volunteer Doula group that provided services for low income, uninsured and teen moms that birthed at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley.

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Helen Arega - Co-Founder of RLBC, Helen is a traditional birth attendant, activist, and educator. She is a member of Black Women Birthing Justice and currently serves as the Roots of Labor Doula Coordinator. Helen was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to the US when she was 4 yrs. old. While she has spent most of her life in US she is very passionate about birth justice issues on a global scale, specifically in Afrika. She describes herself as calm, passionate, reliable, and organized. Sending love and light!
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​Dr. Monica McLemore RN, MPH, PHD - Assistant Professor UCSF School of Nursing
My long-term interests are to design interventions to improve preventive women’s health and overall well-being. I am a nurse trained in public health, with a research focused doctorate and I maintain a clinical practice, which allows my clinical responsibilities and research interests to be closely aligned. My program of research is centered in discovering the structural factors associated with reproductive health outcomes for BIPOC.


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Elena Aurora - Co-Founder of RLBC, Elena is a skilled doula, activist, and facilitator. She is an original member of the East Bay Community Birth Support Project Doula Training and has gone on to apprenticeship for homebirth midwifery. She is active in the Queer and Trans* communities and is a proud Peruvian American. Some of her other interests and projects revolve around decreasing the pollution impact on the planet, coordinating doula and placenta encapsulation trainings, and living a plant based/vegan lifestyle.
Fiscal Sponsor - RLBC is currently sponsored by L.C. and Lillie Cox Haven of Hope.
​We believe that everyone deserves a doula.
#EveryoneDeservesaDoula #EDD

​rootsoflaborbc@gmail.com
(805) 910-RLBC (7522)