We recently connected with Rosa E. Rivera and have shared our conversation below.

Rosa E., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share an anecdote or story from your schooling/training that you feel illustrates what the overall experience was like?

I trained as a Doula with Latham Thomas from Mama Glow in Brooklyn New York. I decided to gift myself the training as a birthday present, not fully knowing what I would be getting myself into.

My training as a Doula has been very healing, I feel like I found my tribe during my training and my practice. I was sitting at the table with the matriarchs and I finally felt like I was exactly where I belong. I came from a family of mostly women, and I learned from them how to take care of other people.

We were a group of women on our own healing journeys, working to heal the world and the communities that we lived in, one family at a time.

we laughed, we cried, we danced, we sang, we hugged each other, we shared our pain, and we shared in our commitment to protect women, and make the birthing journey sacred.

The work that we do to welcome and create safe space during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum is very intimate, and it can really help set the tone for the experience that the family has around, bringing a new life into the world.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I consider myself a holistic healer and a body worker. I began my journey from healing, my own trauma and pain in my body. I’ve had a lot of body ailments, from endometriosis, to very bad cervical neck pain, that led me into yoga, and healing my womb, which led me into maternal health.

Since then, I have taken off and dug my heels into healing practices, holistic, medicine, and continued education. This has led me to get certified as a Prenatal yoga instructor, receive my certification as a lactation consultant, and begin my journey into herbalism.

I support women through pregnancy, labor, and postpartum periods. I provide childbirth education, support families to be prepared for labor, support with care and comfort measures during pregnancy and labor, support with advocacy during prenatal appointments and/or labor, support with movement and meditation, and help with nourishment, breastfeeding, care, and chores after labor.

One of my biggest goals is to hallmark the pregnancy and birth experience for moms and families, so that this time is sacred, memorable, insightful, and fun. This period goes by so fast and for many people it’s one of the most defining times in their lives, I consider myself honored and grateful that I get to spend this very significant period of someone’s life with them and they let me into their family.

I think what sets me apart is that I’m very caring, intuitive, and assertive. I go above and beyond to care for my clients. I am the eldest child in my pack and so I always had a sense of responsibility that I feel like I came into this world with to serve, to support and to nurture..

My mom would always tell people that I have a bleeding heart and that I would do anything for anyone. She would always say that she thought I would be a doctor. I thought she was crazy because I had no desire to be a western medicine doctor, but now I realize in many ways I am a healer and that’s what she meant.

I’m proud of myself for doing the work. It’s been quite a journey, and life has many challenges. I could have only got to this place I am by looking at myself in the mirror, and doing the work to heal and find my own sense of belonging, connection, and purpose here.

I want to share in this sacred connection, belonging, and love with others, and raise the vibration of the planet. I want to practice being empowered, encouraged, supported and protected by each other in community. I want women and everyone to know that we can heal our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. We can cultivate traditions and practices that honor our divine and human experience. There is so much more to this life than what we can see with our eyes and we can create change together no matter how detrimental existing patterns seem..

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m actually going through a transition right now. I started my own nonprofit called Miracle on Craig Street in 2015 and began fundraising for a community center that closed down in our neighborhood, so that we could provide our healing services in this space.

I worked on this project for the past eight years with many different people. I invested a lot of my time, energy, and life into this mission. I raised a lot of money to hire consultants and professionals for the capital project.

We’ve spent thousands of dollars on surveys and assessments, tools, and materials, and most notably, a lot of hard work doing some volunteer demolition in the building.

We were awarded some funding from the city and a local authority. However, after the pandemic the cost for the renovation doubled, and I had to make a very hard decision to let the project go in December 2023.

It’s bittersweet, there’s a lot of politics involved sometimes when grant funding is involved, that’s a whole different article. All of our awards were contingent on having the money for the whole renovation. We didn’t receive the support that was necessary to make this happen, there were a lot of stakeholders that didn’t come to the table, didn’t feel like we were capable, and didn’t offer any resources for the past eight years.

There is a big part of me that feels relieved of the stress of bureaucracy and politics. But it is somber, knowing how much we all believed in this project, and wanted it for the community, for our neighbors, our friends, and our families.

My hope is that in the future, there will be more work done and support put in place for grassroots community development and asset based community development in urban areas because it is foundational to creating a sense of belonging for people.

In the meantime, I have a lot more space to step into my creative energy and purpose. This has opened up a window for me to regroup, reset, re-energize, and restore myself. I’ve been getting the time to revisit my growing skills and getting connected with the land and herbs, and making some healing medicine for other people and myself.

I believe that God has a bigger vision for me than what I expected and I can see now that I have to surrender my will to the greater vision. I know we will find a space at the most opportune time and our work in this community is not finished. This is our home.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I dropped out of school in 10th grade when I was 17. I immediately received my GED and went to SUNY Schenectady for liberal arts while working at Jackson Hewitt preparing taxes. I was the youngest person in my class to graduate in 2010. I immediately transferred to SUNY Oswego to study philosophy and psychology. I worked in an acute psychiatric facility overnight where I got most of my studying done. I graduated magna cum laude in 2012. I came home for about a year to try to find work and I couldn’t find a good entry-level job because I didn’t have any work experience and was fresh out of college.

I worked at Piercing Pagoda in the mall for the time being, I decided that I was going to just go back to school and get my masters because I couldn’t find any good paying jobs. I applied to Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Arizona state, and Loyola University in Chicago all for their social justice programs. I got accepted to all of the masters programs and visited them all.

At that time I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, I knew that social justice was something intuitive for me because it was my lived experience being a part of multiple minority groups (she/her, lgbtq, latinx). I ended up going to Loyola because I fell in love with Chicago. It was a less populated NYC. It was my first time living out of state on my own, with my dog and I graduated from Loyola in 2014 with my M.A. in social justice and community development.

I got a job at a local foundation and I was very pleased. I thought I had made it despite expecting about $10,000 more than what I was being paid, I was content.

But, then I realized that I really wanted to be more accessible to the community that I worked in and lived in. I noticed that a lot of the black organizations were struggling in capacity and administration, and always received less funding. We had a lot of real issues going on in our community around gun, violence, addiction, health, and health disparities. This was the same community that I grew up in and I knew firsthand the challenges. I learned a lot at the foundation about the organizational nonprofits in the city, and the work they were doing, and the programs that they had over the three years that I was there .

I decided to leave the foundation without a plan, just conviction in my heart to be there for my people, and for my community, and to use my skills to help them/us. This is when I found Miracle on Craig Street, a nonprofit aimed to root a culturally responsive network of people, resources, and opportunities for people in Schenectady. This included reopening the Carver community center as our main scope of work for the past eight years, and then later on establishing community programming and services around sports recreation, yoga, journaling, Doula services, and now lactation counseling.

When I look back, I wasn’t aware of where I was headed. My journey is still unfolding. I see myself getting deeper into being a bodyworker and supporting healing the body, which is inextricably linked to healing the mind. I see myself always having a place, a role, and a responsibility to collective healing work. I don’t think that I chose this path, not entirely anyway, I think in many ways it chose me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://miracle518.org/
• Instagram: Joysouldoula, Rest.Ritual.Routine, Starwombam
• Facebook: Joysouldoula, Miracle on Craig Street