Overview

In a small town in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Indigenous midwives carry on ancestral traditions that blend herbal medicine, spiritual guidance, and community care. This internship invites you into the heart of that living lineage, where pregnancy, birth, and postpartum healing are supported through a deep relationship with plants, ceremony, and collective knowledge.

Hosted by a women-run healing center, this program is rooted in Indigenous approaches to wellness and reproductive health. Interns will learn how local midwives use plants for everything from steam baths to natural contraceptives, while also gaining insight into the social and cultural frameworks that shape Amazonian women's health. Through hands-on support, observation, and participation in workshops, you’ll become part of a powerful intergenerational network of care that honors the wisdom of the forest and the bodies of those who live within it.

Daily Life

Each day unfolds in rhythm with the needs of the center and the surrounding community. You might start your morning in the medicinal garden, harvesting herbs for steam baths or tinctures. Later, you could help prepare food for visitors, sit in on a sharing circle with midwives, or assist in organizing a community workshop. Some days may involve shadowing the midwives on pre or post natal patient visits in nearby communities or helping with educational activities on topics like natural contraceptives. You may even shadow a birth during your internship. Evenings are often quiet, filled with time for reflection, storytelling, or preparing the space for upcoming guests.

You’ll be immersed in a living knowledge system where health, spirituality, and ecology are interconnected. Through your support in daily tasks and wellness workshops, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how Indigenous women care for themselves, their families, and their environment—guided not by modern equipment, but by plants, intuition, and inherited wisdom.

Price:

$2700 total, 1 month minimum

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