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Protecting human rights in childbirth

Registered Charity Number 1151152

Our Team

Birthrights was founded in 2013 by human rights barrister, Elizabeth Prochaska, and Rebecca Schiller, a doula and writer on birth, parenting and women’s rights. Our work is overseen by our expert board, including senior health professionals, policy-makers, people with lived experience and lawyers.

Shanthi Gunesekera & Janaki Mahadevan

Chief Executive Officers (job share)

Shanthi & Janaki - incoming CEOS of Birthrights

Reema Ved

Operations Lead – Support Services and Systems

Photos of Birthrights Operations Manager Reema Ved

Sammy Beecham

Operations Lead – Governance, Performance and Risk

Hannah Vincent

Operations Lead – Governance, Performance & Risk (Maternity cover)

Saras Arulampalam

Training Manager

Beth Russell

Training Co-ordinator

Amisha Abeyawardene 

Training Co-ordinator

Photo of Amisha Abeyawardene

Johanna Rhys-Davies

Advice and Information Manager

Lorraine Pryce

Advice and Information Officer

Danielle Farrow

Advice and Information Officer

Danielle Farrow Birthrights Advice and Information Manager

Miranda Atty

Communications Manager

Photo of Miranda Atty

Celine Raynaud

Communications Officer

Celine Raynaud- Birthrights Communicatins Officer

Kate Lewin

Communications Manager (Maternity Cover)

Kate Lewin Comms Manager (maternity cover) Birthrights

Elif Ege

Policy and Campaigns Manager

Chief Executive Officers (job share)

Shanthi Gunesekera & Janaki Mahadevan

Shanthi and Janaki have worked previously as a job share since early 2019 during which time, they led the Greater London Authority (GLA)’s policy and programmes delivered under the Mayor of London’s Social Integration Strategy. This included efforts to address labour market inequality, increase active citizenship and democratic participation, strengthen relationships across London’s communities and support people newly arrived in the Capital and those with insecure immigration status to access their rights and thrive in London.

Before their job share at the GLA, Janaki was Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the London Borough of Newham and prior to that worked as a journalist on publications including Children & Young People Now. Shanthi led migration policy at the Greater London Authority under the previous Mayor, and prior to that worked at the London Borough of Enfield on programme and change management, and equalities.

Operations Lead – Support Services and Systems

Reema Ved

Reema, has over seven years’ experience in the cancer charity sector. She most recently was a Cancer Support Specialist at Maggie’s at the Royal Free, and previously worked in the NHS and other health organisations including the Health Research Authority in the Department of Health. She also volunteered as a Research Assistant at the London Art Therapy Centre to pursue her interest in this field of work. Reema experienced some tough times post-birth and joined Birthrights to make a difference for others in similar situations.

reema@birthrights.org.uk

Operations Lead – Governance, Performance and Risk

Sammy Beecham

Sammy has over 15 years’ experience of working in the charitable and local government sector, working across a range of public policy areas including housing, education and health. Sammy previously worked for York Women’s Counselling Service, playing a leading role in developing the charity’s strategy and governance. Prior to this, she worked for Shelter, the National housing and homelessness charity, before becoming Operations Director at E-ACT, a multi-academy trust that manages multiple schools across England. In this role Sammy held responsibility for governance, HR, communications, data insight and major projects. Sammy is currently on maternity leave.

Operations Lead – Governance, Performance and Risk

Hannah Vincent

Hannah joins our team as maternity cover for the Governance and Operations Lead. She has a wealth of experience from the past decade working in governance for an ALB, NUS and a CIC. Along side work and raising two girls, Hannah is passionate about sustainable clothing and creates beautiful wedding dresses for friends and family and occasionally something for herself! The summer sees her and family being ‘happy’ (sometimes!) campers in their classic VW when it doesn’t break down on the journeys! Hannah has a great eye for detail and if we were office based she would be making lots of brews for us.

Training Manager

Saras Arulampalam

Saras has experience working with charities and a background in law. She has worked with refugees, asylum seekers and those experiencing domestic abuse. Her role before Birthrights included designing and delivering training to healthcare professionals to enable them to identify and effectively respond to disclosure of domestic abuse. She is passionate about ensuring that everyone gets rights-based and person-centred care.

saras@birthrights.org.uk

Training Co-ordinator

Beth Russell

Beth is a midwife, hypnobirthing practitioner and MSc Student, and her passion for human rights in childbirth stemmed from advocating for women and birthing people as a midwife. Her wish for everyone is to have access to the information that they want and to be unwaveringly supported in what is right for them as an individual, and she believes rights based, respectful care is fundamental in ensuring both physical and psychological safety during birth. She is incredibly proud to be a part of the Birthrights team.

Training Coordinator

Amisha Abeyawardene

Amisha (they/she) is a doula based in London who is passionate about providing individualised and trauma-informed support to those most marginalised by the healthcare system, especially queer and trans Black and brown people. They also work with Neighbourhood Doulas to provide perinatal support to those who are lacking a birthing partner and with other complex needs such as asylum seekers/refugees and survivors of domestic/sexual violence. Amisha is also a member of Kinhood Collective, a reproductive health collective created to support LGBTQIA+ people and families.

Advice and Information Manager

Johanna Rhys-Davies

Johanna has worked with Human Rights Law for over 20 years as a practising barrister, focusing on cases involving asylum and human rights law, family law, and survivors of coercion and abuse. In 2009 she gave birth to her son and turned her attention to maternity rights and co-founded a maternity advocacy group in Yorkshire. Outside of Birthrights, Johanna is a qualified breastfeeding counsellor, spent six years on the board of LLLGB and was recently elected to the Great Britain seat on the board of La Leche League International. She is also a trustee for the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust.

jo@birthrights.org.uk

Advice and Information Officer

Lorraine Pryce

Lorraine is a doula and photographer supporting families across West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. After training with Nurturing Birth in 2019, Lorraine has cared for a diverse number of clients with compassion and a tenacity to improve the birthing experience for all. “I believe every birthing person deserves to have a positive experience on their journey to becoming a parent, no matter who they are and how they choose to birth and nurture their babies.” Lorraine offers birth and postnatal doula support whilst also capturing sacred moments through her birth and postpartum photography services.

Advice and Information Officer

Danielle Farrow

Danielle is a Doula, Hypnobirthing teacher and Holistic Therapist supporting women, birthing people and families across Merseyside and Cheshire. Studying for her MSc Psychology in 2020, Danielle specialised in the transition to motherhood and in particular what people need to thrive during and post birth. Since then, she has established a business offering birth and postnatal Doula support services, Hypnobirthing and pregnant bump and body casting. Danielle is passionate about supporting people to access information and knowledge so that they may flourish in the early years of their children’s lives and beyond.

Communications Manager

Miranda Atty

Miranda has over a decade of experience working as a TV and digital journalist and travelling all over the world, before moving into the charity and NGO space. Passionate about human rights, she previously worked for a leading international girls’ rights charity covering issues like COVID, the Southern African food crisis and instability in the Sahel region. Miranda is currently on maternity leave.

Communications Officer

Celine Raynaud

Celine is a trained journalist with prior experience in the non-profit sector. With a background in communications and digital marketing roles, her experience includes having worked as a staff writer for digital publications and as a freelancer, to produce content across different platforms. Passionate about driving positive change, she previously worked in the NGO space to promote the work of artists from marginalised backgrounds.

celine@birthrights.org.uk

Communications Manager (Maternity Cover)

Kate Lewin

Kate has ten years’ experience working as a communications and marketing lead and previously oversaw comms, policy and partnerships at Nottingham Women’s Centre. She is a passionate campaigner for social justice, in particular LGBTQIA+ rights, as well as person-centred systems of care. Alongside looking after the Communications Manager role whilst Miranda is on maternity leave, Kate is also retraining part-time to become a psychotherapist.

kate@birthrights.org.uk

Policy & Campaigns Manager

Elif Ege

Elif is feminist and activist who has experience in monitoring of the implementation of laws and policies on gender-based violence, conducting national and international advocacy and organising campaigns in Turkey and Europe. She has a PhD from the Global Gender and Sexuality Studies program at SUNY University at Buffalo, USA. She is excited about working collectively to hold institutions accountable and to shift wider systems to achieve safe maternity care, free from discrimination, coercion and violence.