Asia Fresse Blackwell, mmi executive director

Asia is an avid supporter of midwifery services and has worked with professional midwives in both the United States and in Guatemala. Asia holds a Master of Public Affairs degree with a concentration in nonprofit management from Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and has over ten years of experience in the nonprofit / philanthropic sectors. For the past seven years, Asia has devoted her work to social and community development in Guatemala. She served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps' Maternal and Child Health Project and has worked as a consultant for various nonprofit organizations. She is passionate about research, data driven methodologies, and monitoring and evaluating impact in order to improve programming and further engage donors. Asia is fluent in Spanish and lives full-time in Guatemala. As MMI’s Executive Director, she hopes to increase national advocacy for indigenous Maya midwives. Asia firmly believes that indigenous midwives are a key resource that must be engaged and supported to successfully address maternal and child health disparities in Guatemala and beyond.

Milena Riha, MMI Program Manager

Milena has a Bachelor's Degree in Legal and Social Sciences from Rafael Landivar University and is working towards becoming a lawyer.

She has work experience in Guatemala, as well as in Europe, in the fields of education, administration, and coordination of alliances with various NGOs. As Local Administrative Coordinator at MMI, she helps in administration, logistics, management, and coordination while at the same time empowering the midwives so that they can better develop their skills in these areas.

Sebastián Rodríguez, MMI Stakeholder engagement coordinator

Sebastian holds a technical degree in Professional Advertising and is currently working to finish his Bachelor's Degree in Communication Science at the San Carlos University in Guatemala City.

As Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator, he manages MMI's social media presence as well as acts as a bilingual cultural liaison to foundations, donors, and visitors to ACAM. He hopes to continue building this working relationship at MMI and contributing his ideas to improve MMI's social media in order to better assist the midwives of ACAM.