To honor birth is to honor all the lands and women within our lineages.
Joyell Arvella, JD
Joyell was put on the traditional midwifery path by her family’s matriarchs 21 years ago. Since then she has attended more than 100 births, and supported dozens of families through womb-to-tomb care. In addition to her botanical and midwifery apprenticeships with Community Midwives worldwide, Joyell codified her skills by completing Holistic Quantum Midwifery training with Whapio, The Birth Well training with Nilajah Brown, SMC Full Circle Doula training with Mama Shafia Monroe, and Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, on track to become one of the few multi-state licensed Black midwives.
Traveling midwifery
As an independent scholar and proud birth nerd, Joyell has studied the ways of her grandmothers— identifying the connections between community cooperation, ancient foodways, reproductive physiology, and spirituality. Her apprenticeships and research have informed her belief that birth work is an ancestral art form that must be protected. After sitting with griots and elders on 5 continents, Joyell founded Wombs of Wata, a community-based initiative that sits at the intersection of birth justice, residency, and sustainability. You can find her facilitating traditional midwifery classes, writing, in her garden, or learning another language when she is not supporting families. Joyell is learning isiXhosa and Hindi, and is proficient in French and Spanish.
“Joyell is the embodiment of where the ocean and shoreline meet. She is the idea of what is created when they both meet. She holds the elements of cleansing, healing, divinity, sacredness, and (re)knowing…the magic and Asé of mud.” -Jenné A.
Modalities
Joyell supports communities as a traveling traditional midwife, teacher, medicine woman, and creative. While she no longer works in international human rights law full-time, her legal skills plus her background in racial and gender equity strategy inform her approach to reproductive autonomy. Her passion for birth justice is rooted in centering traditional midwifery, embodying ancestral practices, and building self-sustaining birth communities.