Our teachers: the perfect combination of wise, dedicated and loving

In 2012, Ibu Robin Lim & Debra Pascali-Bonaro came together to teach the first Eat Pray Doula Workshop
in Bali, Indonesia. In 2017, they were joined by Midwife Mala Landt.

Since then, their vast individual and collective experience and passion for culturally safe, gentle birth including informed and respectful decision-making as the pathway to Peace On Earth has offered retreat participants an unparalleled wellspring of tools, inspiration, information, and hope for their own futures as Doulas, Midwives, Nurses, Physicians, Acupuncturists, Therapist and Body Workers to become change-makers in birth for the future of planet earth.

Together, we provide our promised doulas with wisdom, research, song and ceremony which has been acquired
from traditional birthkeepers from around the world.

Learn more about our teachers and their expertise

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Debra has trained thousands of doulas, birth keepers and parents around the world in the practices of gentle birth support.  She is the Founder & President of Pain to Power Childbirth Experience, Director of the award-winning documentary Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret , author and inspirational international speaker, and chair of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization.   Debra’s passion comes from her years as a Lamaze International childbirth educator, and birth and postpartum doula trainer with DONA International where she has worked with women, men, midwives, doulas, nurses and physicians in over 40 countries bringing comfort, love and pleasure to birth and life!

Robin Lim is an internationally-recognized midwife, well-known author and talented poet. Bumi Sehat International,  her non-profit Indonesian birthing and educational clinics have saved hundreds of lives and delivered thousands of babies, serving the poor and medically disenfranchised citizens of Bali and in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh, Sumatra and the Philippines. Ibu Robin remains indefatigably committed to changing the world, one gentle birth at a time.

Mala has been a CPM for over 20 years and lives on the Big Island of Hawaii on a small organic farm with three of her four sons and their families. Her farm has been dedicated as a Gentlebirth Sanctuary and Education Center. Mala has had a home birth midwifery practice on the Big Island for 18 years now yet she has spent 10 of those years traveling to Bali to work with Ibu Robin in Ubud, Bali.

Mala has a BA in Anthropology and Psychology and a Masters in Special Education. She worked as a Dance Therapist in the North Carolina State School for the Handicapped and later on in the Virgin Islands Public schools, she taught Adaptive Physical Education. She orchestrated Preschools to begin combining special needs children and “normal” children, and proved the benefits for both populations in social adaptation and motivation in learning.

She is an International Yoga Teacher of 40 years, a professional Massage therapist of 20 years, a Cranial Sacral Therapist and Prenatal Yoga instructor and Postpartum Exercise Instructor. She studied at the Oneness University in India and became a Trainer of “Deeksha,” which is a force for Global Awakening. She was an Instructor of Doula Certification and training with the Barefoot Doctors Academy in Hawaii in 2004, 2009 and 2014.

Our Advanced Skills Guest Teachers 

Jennie Joseph, LM, CPM, Midwife & Executive Director of Commonsense Childbirth, Inc.

Jennie Joseph is a British-trained midwife who fights to ensure every woman has their healthiest possible pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience with dignity and support.

Jennie created The JJ Way® which is an evidence-based maternity medical home model delivering readily-accessible, patient-centered, culturally-congruent care to women in areas that she terms ‘materno-toxic zones’.

She is the Executive Director of her own non-profit corporation Commonsense Childbirth Inc. which operates a midwifery school & training institute, health clinics and a birthing center in Orlando, Florida where she has lived since 1989. Jennie is also the founder of the National Perinatal Task Force, a grassroots organization whose mission is the elimination of racial disparities in maternal child health in the USA.

Dr. Sarah Buckley, Author, PhD Candidate

Dr. Sarah Buckley is a family physician (GP), trained in GP obstetrics.

She has been writing and lecturing to childbirth professionals and parents since 1997, and is the author of the internationally best-selling book Gentle Birth. Gentle Mothering,

Sarah has a special interest in the hormonal physiology of labour and birth and in 2015 she completed an extensive scientific report on this topic, Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing, published with Childbirth Connection (US) in 2015. She is currently a PhD candidate in this area at the University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia.

See www.sarahbuckley.com and her Hormonal Physiology report at http://transform.childbirthconnection.org/reports/physiology/

Naoli Vinaver, Traditional & NARM Certified Professional Midwife

Naolí Vinaver is a Mexican midwife who combines traditional Mexican and contemporary home birth practices, with a profound respect for the physiology of natural birth, having attended over 1700 home births in both Mexico and Brazil. Naolí is a passionate speaker and educator, teaching hundreds of workshops and seminars in over 30 countries around the world.

Naoli currently resides in Florianópolis, Brazil and is a fully active midwife attending many births a year with her midwifery team Ama Nascer, (which she co-founded in 2014). The group consists of 6 active interdisciplinary birth professionals offering wholistic care for women who come from around the world in: pregnancy, home birth and accompanied hospital birth, as well as all home postpartum care. The group also offers weekly birth classes to pregnant women and their families and specialized birth training for doulas and other birth professionals.