About me
My name is Aimee Aroha.
I am a qualified counsellor practicing outside the system as a Matricentric Mentor for the child bearing continuum & beyond.
I am a (free)birthing, freeschooling Mama of five children.
A woman of Māori (Te Rarawa, Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Torotoroa, Te Popoto), Scottish and Irish descent, I prioritise decolonial values in my personal life, in my work and the provision of care.
My purpose is to prioritise motherhood, while revitalising my own pre colonial lineage and midwifing cultural change through strong, embodied leadership.
I strive to develop and nurture a decolonial lens through which to support the folks I work with; a lens that values our whole experience as human beings, while acknowledging how our individual and collective wellness intersects with colonisation and capitalism.
Integral to this is unpacking the way the dominant system established and maintains itself, the harm it has enacted against Indigenous peoples and lands, and how this continues today. Understanding how the systems in place came to be and the truth of their violent roots is harrowing work but it is integral to freeing ourselves from the delusion of western civility and dreaming a different, more sustainable and just way into being.
My work is to learn from pre colonial ways of being in service to a decolonial future.
Decolonising my worldview and how I walk through life is an ongoing personal hikoi (journey) for me, it encompasses all aspects of existence and is generational work continued through my lineage. I consider this to be devotional, lifelong work informed by our peoples stories, a pre colonial Māori framework, the history and ongoing impact of colonisation and the many teachers I am privileged and humbled to learn from including my late father Ropata Heke and our great grandmother Maraea Herepete Heke whose pūrākau I was raised on through my Dad.
As a Māori, mixed race woman raising five babies living on unceded Indigenous land further decolonising my perspective is a sacred responsibility.
I acknowledge the Original stewards of the Bundjalung Nation for whom sovereignty has never been ceded and whose land I live and work upon.
I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
As a settler here I recognise that this land was stolen from First Nations people, I commit to walking humbly on the land and with the utmost respect for the continuing culture of all First Nations people.
I choose to make weekly contributions to The Returning and First Nations Futures and invite you to do the same.
I have spent several years studying and working in the Community Development sector with a wide range of people from all backgrounds, from travelling around NSW facilitating community workshops, to intimate care work across the child bearing continuum to teaching on pre colonial history - My love is working with the full spectrum of beautiful complex humans.
My education and training includes:
Diploma in Community Services Work
Diploma in Community Development
Advanced Diploma in Counselling
12 Months work experience at Redfern Community Centre
Two years of study in Transpersonal Art Therapy with the College of Complimentary Medicine (uncertified)
Certificate in Integrative somatic parts work with Embody Lab
New Paradigm of Care Practitioner Mentorship with Dra. Rosales Meza
Birthing from Within’s Mentor and Doula training
Cornerstone Doula Trainings ‘Homebirth for Doulas’ and
Postpartum care with Centre for Sacred Window studies
