In 2012 I was invovled in a show for SBS Australia called ‘Go Back to Where You Came from’ an Emmy wining documentary that followed the journeys of refugees who had come to Australia. Part of this journey took me to Africa and Indonesia and I started to see something really important. I started to see community and the spirit of people who support each other in life’s truly important moments such as birth and in end of life and also in all the moments in-between.
While on the show, I saw women joyfully coming together to get their water or cook meals together. I saw them coming together to make things and also to just be. Men did this too, as did the whole community. As you can imagine I am talking about to people who are in pretty dire situations. This includes people who were stuck in camps for years and years. The common thread for me was observing the love, the support, the joy and the laugther that came through in-person connections and finding the laugther even in the worst times.
This experience led me to explore what I could do with my life and my career that would involve this kind of in person connection,
support and love on the deepest possible level. So I embark on a journey that led me to birth and then end of life doula work. I fell in love with this work and ultimately the reason behind it, humans connecting to humans.