The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project
This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country. My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.
These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.
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Joy is a doula. She works predominantly in Cape Towns city centre and the South Peninsula areas. She has been a doula for three years now.
Joy is a member of The Birth Hub where she is an antenatal course facilitator and one of the doula’s making up the team, she is a also a qualified Shiatsu Therapist. Apart from her work with women, Joy feels strongly about education and how to make change come about from the roots up.
This is what inspires Joy about being involved in birthing in South Africa…
“Besides my chosen vocation, I am also a mother to three daughters. If anything motivates me to change beliefs around femininity, womanhood, pregnancy and birth, it is them.
I look forward to the day where the instinct inherent in women is respected and honored; where women’s desire to trust their bodies is held in high regard.”–
“Sex education at schools should be changed to be inclusive of the love and trust of the feminine. Without this positive education, women become mothers surrounded by fear and distrust rather than love and faith. This must change for a healthier, more peaceful future for our descendants. This must Change.”
• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).