The Wise Womb Foundation NYC Origin Story
On October 2, 2024, Olivia felt a strong urge to open a nonprofit and make female health education accessible to more women in New York City. She contacted her good friend, Julie, and asked if she would join her on this mission. Unbeknownst to Olivia, two hours prior, Julie had completed her new moon ritual where she poured her heart out and asked for financial independence to create an association…six days later on October 8, 2024, Wise Womb NYC became a 501(c)(3) registered tax-exempt organization.
Olivia and Julie have been in each other’s lives for over seven years now, beginning their Integrative Health Coach journeys together at IIN. Both are women’s health advocates who are passionate about empowering young girls with holistic practices to reduce and prevent conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, PMDD, painful periods, infertility, and traumatic childbirth.
Wise Womb’s third co-founder, Adele, was a natural fit for the foundation due to her personal evolution from debilitating, painful periods as an adolescent to learning about menstrual cycle awareness and developing pain-free periods as a woman in her 20s. She brings her knowledge and natural curiosity of plants, regenerative farming, and creating homemade products from local available resources. Each of these three women brings a different aspect of feminine advocacy into Wise Womb and represents a different phase of a woman.
Our Wise Womb President, Julie Fotis, has a spiritual practice in New York City with an office in Midtown Manhattan where she clears subconscious blocks that are inhibiting someone from living their optimal lives. She also regularly hosts women’s circles in the city with Divines NYC and has recently expanded her offerings to include home and retail energy clearing. Julie is our holistic birth practitioner and educator, a doula, and a French mamma of two young boys. After healing her PCOS condition naturally and healing her infertility, Julie quit her demanding finance job in investment banking of ten years and opened up her private practice. She sees clients in her office as well as online.
Our Wise Womb CEO, Olivia Dzumaga, is a Sacred Intimacy Mentor who had her own practice for years supporting women to discover and embody their sensuality. She has worked 1:1 with women online and held an academy with seminars to discuss research papers about sexuality. Olivia also led couple coaching around intimacy issues. She is passionate about educating women to feel pleasure in their bodies and feeling confident about their sensuality. Olivia is excited to bring her dance background into Wise Womb’s future classes and shine a light on different cultures. She still sees clients in person and online for spiritual sessions related to matters of love, relationships, and intimacy.
Our Wise Womb COO, Adelemarie Palermo, is an advocate for cycle awareness and living in sync with it as a woman. For years she struggled with painful periods and finding a lack of support in the medical community, she turned to practicing menstruation awareness. After many months of tracking, her symptoms lessened and Adele worked with her rhythms of energy and respected the times her body was asking for rest. Since embracing her feminine self, Adele ignited her creative self and birthed a women’s magazine called Renaissance Magazine that explores various subjects like culture, history, and health.
Wise Womb NYC is honored to announce that as of March 25, 2025, within less than six months of opening, has secured major partnerships within the nonprofit community, including Saving Mothers, an international organization based in NYC fighting maternal death here and globally. In January, Wise Womb NYC exhibited at the NYC Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side and will be there again on May 25, 2025 for the World of Wellness Day.
On March 5, 2025, Wise Womb self-published and released its first physical product, a coloring and workbook called Yoni Tales: A Coloring and Reflective Guide to Ancient Feminine Wisdom, available on Amazon Books. It is an immersive journey into the sacred history, anatomy, and symbolism of the vulva. Never before has there been an interactive workbook and comprehensive text depicting the vulva as an icon through the anatomical, historical, and cultural lens. Furthermore, Yoni Tales blends creativity with deep reflection; this guide offers beautifully illustrated coloring pages and thought-provoking journaling prompts. It explores the wisdom of herbs and ancestral practices like yoni steaming, inviting readers to reclaim and celebrate their connection to their bodies through art, inquiry, and ancient knowledge. Ancient cultures revered a woman’s portal of life; Yoni Tales includes excerpts from primary sources that discuss festivals honoring sacred womanhood, photos of symbols worshipping the yoni including sheela-na-gigs, ana-suromai, pilgrim vulvas and more.
The Wise Womb Library has seven classes uploaded with a bilingual class on postpartum, La Cuarentena, in Spanish. There are two more for March, including our discussion with Dr. G on Ovarian Cysts versus PCOS, and four upcoming classes in April alone.
The Wise Womb NYC team is excited for their efforts and for the future of its organization.