About Us

Kaya Skye, Executive Director

Kaya first came to Sénégal in 1996 working on her bachelor’s degree for the University of California Santa Cruz. She produced a documentary video and thesis entitled: “Sénégal at the Crossroads: Emerging Dialogue Between Traditional and Modern Medicine”. This award winning work looks at the changing relationship between traditional and modern medicinal systems and the potential for referral systems and integration in public health models. The video includes rare interviews with traditional healers, World Health Organization officials, public health workers and modern doctors and psychologists. Kaya lived in Senegal for five years and is the mother of three children. She currently resides in Eugene, Oregon.

Dana Combest

Dana has practiced as a midwife since 1978, obtaining her CPM in 1999 and her WA state license in 2002. She is dedicated to preserving and expanding traditional midwifery education as it has been taught worldwide through the ages. Dana is a Certified Labor Assistant, Childbirth Educator, and Lactation Counselor; she has been the Academic Director for Ancient Art Midwifery Institute since 1995, and is their Clinical Sites Director. Additionally, she is a preceptor for the National College of Midwifery. She has worked for short periods of time as a midwife in Jamaica, Honduras and Senegal. In 2004, Dana founded With Woman, an organization dedicated to working with and learning from midwives around the globe and reestablishing woman-centered birth practices where they have given way to modern medicine.

Wendy Ashley

Wendy graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1995 with a BA in Geography and Environmental Conservation and a minor in Environmental, Populatory and Organismic Biology, with a focus on the edible and medicinal qualities of plants. In 1996, she began studying yoga with one of the foremost authorities in the Ashtanga tradition and began teaching yoga in her local community when she moved to Oregon in 1998. After the birth of her son in 2000, she started Inesscents, a natural and organic body care company, with a focus on fairly traded Shea butter and traditional African soaps which support local women-run co-ops in Togo and Ghana.

Carrie McCormick, Board Member

Carrie McCormick is a homebirth midwife based in Portland, Oregon and has been involved in the Northwest birth community for the past ten years. She serves on the Board of Directors of Birthingway College of Midwifery and teaches occasional classes (Statistics and Epidemiology for Midwives, Midwifery Culture) there. From 1990 to 1992 Carrie was Project Director for Llamba Association’s Matoso Clinic, a primary health care facility serving villagers in southwestern Kenya; she has returned frequently in subsequent years to work with traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Carrie has an MPH from Oregon State University, focusing on international health policy and maternal child health issues. She lives in Portland, OR with her husband and daughter, Clio.

Kristi Cunningham, Board Member

Kristi Cunningham is a homebirth midwife and she shares her time between St. Mary, Jamaica, and Portland, Oregon. She became certified in 2002, and shortly after moved to Jamaica where she started her own small home birth practice. She spent time in the "bush" learning traditional medicines of the island, and started Kaimani Botanicals, her Jamaican body care company. Kristi is a Childbirth Educator, and Certified Labor Assistant and has also spent time working as a preceptor/midwife in Senegal and Costa Rica. She is married and has two children, Kaya and Imani.

Dr. Hilary Costello, N.D., Board Member

Dr. Hilary Costello N.D. is a primary care physician licensed in the state of Oregon. She received her Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) in 2005. She completed the Obstetrics/Natural Childbirth coursework and advanced training in botanical medicine during her 6 years of medical school at NCNM. Dr. Costello currently has a family practice at Nature Cures Clinic in Portland, Oregon.  She specializes in pediatric and newborn care, minor surgery, holistic dermatology, classical homeopathy, and botanical medicine. She also mentors adolescent girls in a coming-of-age rite of passage program in the Portland area designed to empower developing young women in the community.  As a mother of three beautiful daughters born safely at home, Dr. Costello understands the importance of healthy pregnancy and safely assisted labor and delivery and proudly serves as a board member of the African Birth Collective.