Who We Are

Mission Statement

Midwives for Midwives and Womens's Health International (MFM) is working to strengthen the capacity of traditional midwives to identify and meet the needs of the communities they serve by:

1. Identifying and preserving safe and traditional methods of birthing and healthcare, and enhancing those systems with evidence-based aspects of biomedicine.

    

2. Providing training, support, and the means for professional organization to traditional midwives to improve their skills, expand their resources and enhance their ability to advocate for their own profession.

    

3. Partnering with other health agencies to develop a multi-level capacity-building strategy that includes both midwives and the care providers with whom they interface.

    

MFM is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization operating out of both the U.S. and Antigua, Guatemala.

Board of Directors 

Jennifer Houston, MS, CNM (President)
Jennifer Houston is the founder and Executive Director of Midwives for Midwives and Women's Health International, a mother and grandmother, and a practicing Certified Nurse-Midwife and OB/GYN Nurse-Practitioner. Since 1973, she has been working to humanize and reclaim birth for women as a care provider, women's health educator, health activist and organizer. For the past 20 years she has worked to enhance the profession of midwifery in the United States through activism and involvement in professional organizations. She established and owned a successful midwifery practice and women's health and birth center in New York State, for which she acquired hospital privileges for midwives. She has attended over 4,500 births, 1,500 of those as the primary birth attendant. She has worked in high-risk tertiary health centers, as well as in free-standing birth centers and at home births. Jennifer has trained North American midwives, traditional midwives in India, and worked in the Petén region of Guatemala to identify and classify medicinal plants and provide local midwives with skills to utilize and generate income from the sale of these plants. She is a North American herbalist with a specialty in herbs used for women and children.

Lawrence Perl, MD (Secretary)
Lawrence Perl, M.D. received his B.S. degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago Illinois and his M.D. from The Chicago Medical School. He did his Residency Training at Rush Presbyterian St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. He is a Fellow of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Lawrence currently serves as the Medical Director of The Women’s Health Center of Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, New York where he has practiced since 1981. He is also the Medical Director of the Greene County Family Planning Clinic in Catskill, New York. He is a member of The Medical Society of the State of New York and of Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is the father of five children and the grandfather of eight.

Marcelo Castrillo, MD, MPH
Marcelo Castrillo obtained a medical degree in Bolivia, his home country, and a M.A. in Public Health in Israel in 1994. In 1989, he was awarded a Hubert Humphrey Fellowship at Tulane SPH. In 1995 he worked for Save the Children-Bolivia developing a Census-Based Primary Health Care strategy. In 1990, Marcelo worked for the Johns Hopkins SPH developing and field testing survey methodologies and evaluation and monitoring instruments for PVO CS projects, and provided specialized technical advice and support to PVO HQ and field staff in LAC and Asia. In 1995-96, he served as technical advisor for the MotherCare project in Bolivia. Marcelo has experience designing and implementing safe motherhood monitoring and evaluation tools and methodologies, operations research, and training curricula. He was with the Population Council in Guatemala (1996-2001), managing their entire agenda and specifically a program aimed to build the technical capacities of indigenous NGOs to deliver quality reproductive and child health services. He designed, implemented and analyzed operations research, and oversaw the incorporation of its results and lessons learned into partner organizations. Marcelo currently works out of Santa Cruz, Bolivia as independent consultant and member of the NUR University Advisory Board.

Simon Comerford, MS
Simon Comerford is an Ethnobotany Consultant who received his M.S. degree from Tulane University. The focus of his thesis was "Medicinal Plants Used by Two Traditional Healers in San Andrés, Petén, Guatemala". He has extensive experience in medicinal plants in Guatemala, and has worked with many "curanderos" (traditional healers) and "comadronas" (traditional midwives).

Ann Davenport
Ann Davenport has been a Nurse since 1976,a midwife since 1991 and she currently does consulting for international organizations that focus on maternal and child health programs. Anne has an MA in Health Education, has received her certification as Master Trainer from the Johns Hopkins Program in International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics, and has just completed a second MA in Science and Medical Writing from JHU. Ann has lived and worked on three continents, is fluent in three languages, and continues to fall in love with newborns at every opportunity.

Jennifer Foster, CNM, MPH, PhD
Jennifer Foster, CNM, MPH, PhD, is a midwife who has worked in Mississippi, Maryland, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. From 1977-1980, she served as a public health nurse for the Peace Corps in the Guatemalan Highlands. She was inspired to become a midwife after observing the maternal-child health needs in the region. She is currently working on her dissertation in Medical Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dora Melida Jimenez, MD, CNM
Melida Jimenez R.M. is a Guatemalan/ Canadian midwife and holds a B.S. in Midwifery from Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto, Ontario. She is also a medical doctor from the university of San Carlos of Guatemala. She has worked as a health educator/ health promoter on women issues for multicultural women living in Toronto, especially those of Latino American origin. She has been involved at the community level in Toronto working towards end of violence against women and children as well as a health activist for immigrant and refugee women. During her years of practicing and studying midwifery she has attended over 500 births in which 40% of them were home births. She works in a group practice of 7 midwives and holds hospital privileges in two hospitals in Toronto. Melida is married and a mother of three young adults, and lives in Toronto.

Alissa Keny-Guyer, MPH
Alissa Keny-Guyer holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a MPH in Health Education from the University of Hawaii School of Public Health. Alissa has worked with The Hesperian Foundation, Oxfam and has been a consultant, community organizer, health planner, executive director for Volunteer In Asia. She currently serves as the director of the Hanna Anderssen Foundation. She is the mother of 2 children born with the assistance of midwives and is the founder of the Penney Family Fund.

Virginia Lamprecht, RN, MPH
Virginia Lamprecht, RN, MSPH, MA, has over 15 years of experience working for both USAID Cooperating Agencies and PVOs/NGOs providing technical assistance in reproductive health (family planning, maternal and newborn care, and HIV/AIDS) and designing, monitoring and evaluating international health programs. Currently, she is the PVO/NGO Technical Advisor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In her previous post she was Project HOPE's Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Technical Specialist. Until 2003 she also served as the Chair of the Safe Motherhood/Reproductive Health Working Group of CORE-a network of 35 PVOs involved in reproductive and child health. Virginia also has several years of experience managing a large international multi-center, $13 million dollar study supported by the National Cancer Institute focusing on HIV/AIDS. As Health Research Associate at Family Health International, she monitored contraceptive clinical trials in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Earlier in her career, Ms. Lamprecht worked as a nurse at the US Embassy in Moscow and also as a pediatric nurse at a major teaching hospital. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and is co-author of a chapter in Contraceptive Technology. Her field experience includes working in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti, Malawi, Egypt, Russia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Gloria Metcalf, CNM

Cecilia Pyper, MD
Cecilia Pyper qualified as a doctor from London University in 1976. She has worked as a general practitioner at Bury Knowle Health Centre Oxford and as a Tutor in Primary Health Care at the University of Oxford. In 1990 she completed psychotherapy training. She has been a research fellow at the Health Services Research Unit since 1995. In 1999 she attained a National Primary Care Career Scientist Research Award. She has a specialist interest in reproductive health research and community participation and more recently in patient and health professional access to online electronic health records. She has worked as a consultant to the United States Agency for International Development at the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University working on research and development program as well as carrying out training of trainers in Ukraine and several African countries. She also worked for the International Planned Parenthood Federation evaluating their multi-centered community participation programme and on guidelines development. She has carried out training of trainers in reproductive health and fertility awareness in Ukraine and community participation for 11 Arab region countries and 10 Southeast Asian countries.

Josue Revelorio
Josue Revelorio, an independent grassroots activist for gender equality, has a psychology degree in San Carlos University of Guatemala. He has facilitated a series of three workshops on Gender and Mayan Cosmovision, with Oxfam Australia - Community Aid Abroad and has developed an innovative approach to working with men and gender issues. 

Amy Romano

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