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.
Chief Executive Officer
Hazel Williams
Hazel (she/her) is a passionate, values-driven leader with an outstanding track record in human rights and social justice. She currently serves as Director of Justice Together, where she leads a national programme to improve anti-racist practice in the migration sector and expand access to justice for people navigating the immigration system. Prior to this, she led the Asylum Support Appeals Project, significantly expanding their pro bono legal advice for people refused asylum support. Hazel has also contributed in a voluntary capacity as Co-Director and elder at Doulas Without Borders, and is a trained Birth Doula. She holds a first-class degree in Law and lives by the sea with her three children.
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.
Training Coordinator
Tracy Sealey
Tracy (she/her) is an experienced doula, educator, and trainer with a background in teaching and human rights in maternity care. She has supported hundreds of families through pregnancy, birth, and the postnatal period, and brings this practical experience to her training work with Birthrights. Tracy previously led the Informed Consent and Choice project for the Rosie Hospital’s Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, developing policy and practice to strengthen rights-based maternity care. Passionate about autonomy, respectful communication, and trauma-informed practice, she is dedicated to helping healthcare professionals create compassionate, rights-respecting environments where birthing people feel informed, supported, and safe.
Legal Lead
Laura Mullarkey
Laura (she/her) is a senior lawyer who spent fourteen years working in corporate law in top global law firms. In her previous role, she spent six years creating and building out the training and knowhow function for her team, servicing internal and external clients. Throughout her career, she has acted on many human rights matters, pro bono, focusing on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights issues. Her passion, ignited during her own three pregnancies, is advocating for all women and birthing people’s human rights during pregnancy and birth, and she is delighted to join the Birthrights team.
Advice and Information Co-ordinator
Lorraine Pryce
Lorraine (she/her) 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 Manager
Danielle Farrow
Danielle (she/her) 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 (she/her) 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.
Fundraising Manager
Cathy Welch
Cathy (she/her) has been specialising in charity fundraising, with a focus on trusts and foundations, for nearly 10 years. During that time she has worked directly for social justice, arts, and care charities, and, most recently, as a consultant. She has secured multiple small and large grants from funders including National Lottery Community Fund, Children in Need, Henry Smith Charity, Garfield Weston Foundation and many others. She has also developed organisational fundraising strategies, run individual-giving and crowd-funding campaigns, and delivered training and mentoring.
Training Manager
Farah Lodhi
Farah (she/her) is an experienced manager, trainer, and advocate with a background in human rights and social justice, both in the UK and globally. She has led projects across the Global South, focusing on empowering marginalised communities through education, advocacy, and systemic change. Deeply motivated by the power of education to drive change, she has trained leading global organisations specialising in the intersection of social justice, healthcare equity, and climate action, as well as NHS healthcare professionals, supporting them to recognise and challenge systemic injustices within healthcare delivery. With a passion for creating inclusive, rights-based approaches to care, she continues to coach and manage trainers across multiple sectors in the UK.
Policy & Campaigns Manager
Ann-Marie Agyeman
Ann-Marie (she/her) cares deeply about being attuned to the voices, experiences, and knowledge of marginalised and minoritised communities, a commitment that sits at the heart of her work. She previously worked in international development specialising in strategic advisory on structural poverty, inequality, and systems of power. She carries a thoughtful and reflective approach to policy, advocacy, research and learning, grounded in decolonial and anti-racist praxis. Ann-Marie also serves as a trustee for Hands at Work in Africa, which supports children with essential services, and CSW, an organisation advocating for freedom of religion or belief. With a robust intersectional approach, Ann-Marie hopes to co-create meaningful, hope and liberation-filled campaigns that amplify the knowledge of women and birthing people experiencing multiple forms of injustice through the maternity system.
Communications Co-ordinator
Celine Raynaud
Celine (she/her) is a trained journalist with prior experience in the non-profit sector and working as a multimedia journalist for media outlets and publications. Her experience includes roles as a staff reporter for news and B2B media outlets, as well as archival research for a BBC Two TV documentary series following her training at City St. George’s (University of London). Passionate about driving positive change, she has also worked in the NGO space to promote the work of artists from marginalised backgrounds.
Advice and Information Co-ordinator
Ellie Dawson
Ellie (she/her) is an experienced advocate and participation worker, specialising in supporting women, girls and people of minoritised genders. She has over 10 years’ experience working in the Domestic and Sexual Violence sectors, and qualified as an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) in 2021. Ellie is passionate about supporting people to have their voices heard, their rights respected, and empowering them to make change: to their own lives, and on a community and national level.