Birth your
legacy today
Every Birth Deserves Ceremony
Help Build Our Birth Centre for Southern Vancouver Island
A place where families can birth in culture, safety, and love — and where birthworkers can provide care beyond the hospital walls.
Support the COYA Birth Centre—a sacred space where families are born.
Donate monthly. Impact generations.
Birthing a Vision
On Southern Vancouver Island, there’s no community Birth Centre where families can birth outside the hospital — and no safe, sustainable place for birthworkers to provide full-spectrum, ceremony-based care.
At COYA Family Stewards, we believe every birth is a ceremony, becoming a parent is a rite of passage, and every family deserves to birth safely.
The Every Birth Deserves Ceremony campaign calls on leaders at all levels of government to fund a Southern Vancouver Island Birth Centre — while this page invites you to help us build the community and resources that will make it possible.
Why This Matters
1 in 3 birthers in our region do not have access to medical care.
The South Island Indigenous Midwives (SIIMS) remain unfunded.
The Doulas for Aboriginal Families Grant Program ended in September 2025.
The pediatric urgent care clinic at Victoria General Hospital temporarily closed, revealing how fragile family care access has become.
These gaps show the urgent need for a community Birth Centre that honours culture, supports families, and relieves hospital strain.
What the Birth Centre Offers:
A home-like, family-centered environment for birth beyond the hospital.
Space that honours Indigenous and cultural protocols for birth as ceremony.
Safe, dignified employment for midwives, doulas, and family stewards.
Fewer interventions, stronger families, and improved outcomes for generations — including fewer child apprehensions, stronger family bonds, and reduced cycles of domestic violence.
How You Can Help
✉️ Add Your Voice
Send a letter to your local leaders calling for a Birth Centre on Southern Vancouver Island.💛 Make a Donation Below
Your gift supports the groundwork for this vision — community gatherings, architectural design, impact measurement, and early planning toward a culturally grounded Birth Centre led by Indigenous families and birthworkers.Every dollar helps us take another step toward a place where birth is ceremony and families can thrive.
Our Supporters
I believe that many professionals—coaches, counsellors, and those already supporting families in crisis would greatly benefit from access to the Family Stewardship prevention method.
The ability to proactively guide families through ceremonies, transitions, and healing processes is a critical missing component in traditional support structures. As an Executive Coach, CEO of Rewarding Relationships, and a Cultivating Safe Spaces Trainer, I am honoured to extend my full support for the Family Steward model.
Robyn Ward
CEO and Founder | Rewarding Relationships
Vice President | ICF Vancouver
Board Member | Animikii
Matriarch | Sage Initiative
Volunteer Counsellor | Esquimalt Neighbourhood House
We recognize the importance of holistic and culturally-rooted birthwork in strengthening family bonds
and mitigating the stressors that can arise during the transition to parenthood. As research has shown, the postpartum period presents significant challenges for couples, and the presence of structured support systems can make a crucial difference in the well-being of both birthers and their partners.
We believe that this partnership has the potential to create lasting change by demonstrating the critical role of partner inclusion in birth and postpartum care. We commend your dedication to this work and look forward to contributing to the shared goal of fostering thriving families.
Dr. Erica Woodin
Director, Healthy Relationships Lab
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria
We can Build a Birth Centre Together
Every birth deserves ceremony.
Build Our Birth Centre.
✨ Understanding the Vision: From Questions to Clarity
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A Birth Centre would create a home-like, culturally grounded space where families can birth safely in ceremony, surrounded by love and care.
It would also relieve pressure on local hospitals, provide dignified work for midwives and birthworkers, and improve outcomes for families and newborns. -
No.
A Birth Centre complements existing options by creating a third space — between hospital and home — where families can access midwives, doulas, and culturally safe support in a calm, family-centered environment. -
The Birth Centre is an initiative of COYA Productions Inc. and the Family Stewards movement, led by Jace Poirier Lacerte, a Métis birthworker and community organizer.
The project is grounded in Indigenous teachings that see birth as ceremony and guided by the COYA Agreements: Contribute Our Gifts, Own Our Actions, Yearn for Growth, and Act on Legacy. -
Family Stewards are community members — often parents, birthworkers, or extended family — who help raise families in love, accountability, and belonging.
They are trained through our Family Stewardship model, which teaches how to support new parents through the rite of passage into parenthood.Unlike typical doula or parenting programs that focus solely on the birther, Family Stewards create a circle of care around both parents and the child. They help families build resilience, prevent isolation, and strengthen their connection to community and ceremony.
Learn more about this work at 👉 coya.ca/familystewards
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Every contribution helps move the Birth Centre vision forward.
Funds support:Community gatherings and planning circles
Architectural and design consultations
Cultural and ceremonial protocols
Research and advocacy work
Early-stage feasibility and operational planning
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Yes.
You can choose between two giving streams:🏗️ Birth Centre Builder — supports the creation of the Southern Vancouver Island Birth Centre.
💛 Family Stewardship Sustainer — supports parent education, circle facilitation, and community care through Family Stewardship programs.
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Not yet.
COYA Productions Inc. is a social impact benefit company, and while we’re exploring partnerships with registered charities, donations at this stage are community contributions that help us advance the project through early planning and advocacy.
(If you’re a foundation or organization seeking to contribute through a charitable channel, please contact us to discuss partnership options.) -
You can:
Sign the campaign letter calling on decision-makers to fund a Birth Centre (via Every Birth Deserves Ceremony).
Share this page with your networks to raise awareness.
Attend upcoming community gatherings or listening circles when announced.
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Our next steps include:
Completing the feasibility and design phase for the Birth Centre.
Building relationships with Island Health, First Nations Health Authority, and local municipalities.
Continuing the Wise Council gatherings that guide this vision with ceremony and community leadership.
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Please reach out to:
📧 jace@coyaproductions.ca
or follow updates on Instagram at @FamilyStewards.
Together, we can create a place where every birth is a ceremony.
Jace Poirier Lacerte, Family Steward
Our Visionary on Why Every birth is a ceremony.
A message from Jace Poirier Lacerte, Métis birth worker and founder of COYA and Family Stewards.
If we engage all parents—not just birthing people—in the sacred circle of care at the moment of birth, we can prevent family violence before it begins and build safe, loving communities from the very beginning.
Ceremony reminds us that birth is not just a physical event — it’s a spiritual and communal renewal, where families are woven back into the fabric of love and responsibility. Ceremony creates the conditions for safety — it roots families in connection, belonging, and the shared responsibility to protect one another.
When families are most vulnerable and open to transformation, we have the power to disrupt the intergenerational cycle of violence and restore gender equality by reviving Indigenous rites of passage that honour every gender as precious, powerful, and necessary to the thriving of a family and community.
Our project brings birth back to the village.
In British Columbia, domestic violence remains an epidemic that disproportionately impacts women and children. Research shows that the greatest window for preventing this violence is at the time of birth, yet modern systems isolate families, medicalize birth, and overlook the deep social transformation that becoming a parent demands.
The Southern Vancouver Island Birth Centre will change that — a community-led space where families can birth in ceremony, safety, and belonging, supported by midwives, doulas, and Family Stewards working together.
Through our Family Stewardship model, we train and engage parents of all genders to become stewards of love, accountability, and resilience. Unlike typical doula or parenting programs that focus solely on the birther, we build an intentional circle of support so each child is welcomed into a family ready to protect, guide, and grow with them.
This work is unique in its commitment to both gender equity and Indigenous resurgence. It advances reconciliation by fulfilling TRC Call to Action #22 and UNDRIP Article 23, embedding Indigenous healing practices and self-determination into maternal care - for all.
It deserves to be supported because it’s not only about preventing harm — it’s about building a future where all families have the knowledge, strength, and community to raise children in love, together. Born in ceremony, in our birth centre.
Your support helps us build the Birth Centre and the community systems that will keep families safe for generations to come.
Marsii, Mussi Cho, Thank you
This Isn’t Just a Birth Centre—It’s where Our Families are Born!
