Photos from MANA 2007

Board meetings before the conference

Our conference hotel in the setting sun.

The MANA Board hard at work!

And from the other end of the room.

The joint boards of the Midwives Alliance, North American Registry of Midwives, Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery, Citizens for Midwifery, National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and the International Center for Traditional Childbearing met on Wednesday afternoon before the conference to share reports and discuss future joint work.

The MANA Board on the beach getting ready to practice "Doing the Boardwalk!" L-R: Carmen Quevedo, Trinlie Wood, Tamara Taitt, Gera Simkins, Linda McHale, Diane Holzer, Kelley Daniel, Elizabeth Moore, Maggie Bennett, Pam Dyer Stewart, Sheila Simms Watson, Abby Kinne, Vicki Patsdauter, and Cristina Alonso.

Here's the board in order of length of time each person has been on the board. L-R: Diane Holzer, Abby Kinne, Maggie Bennett, Vicki Patsdauter, Gera Simkins, Linda McHale, Kelley Daniel, Trinlie Wood, Sheila Simms Watson, Elizabeth Moore, Pam Dyer Stewart, Carmen Quevedo, Tamara Taitt, and Cristina Alonso.

MANA 2007 logo designed by Emily Bowman Reeder

The concept of Sankofa is derived from Adinkra of the Akan people of West Africa. Sankofa is transliterated in the Akan language as “se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki.” Literally translated it means “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.” Sankofa is used today across the pan-African world to promote the idea that African people must go back to our roots in order to move forward. Visually and symbolically “Sankofa” is expressed as a mythical bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. Click here for more info.

This symbol is used for our conference to mean that, as midwives, we “must go back to our roots in order to move forward,” without losing what is precious and powerful in birth.