It's Mental Health Awareness Month, and this May especially, Litehouse Wellness continues to put the "men" in mental health.
The group started as a way to reach out to Black men in Dallas; participants in the yoga sessions — called "broga" — carry some form of pain or trauma, which isn't unusual. As the organization notes on its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that Black men in America live seven years less than other races on average and suicide is the third leading cause of death among Black men.
Sherri Doucette, a doula, yoga and meditation instructor, founded Litehouse Wellness in 2017, almost two years after losing her husband to gastro-esophageal cancer. Doucette and her husband, Baba, got further in touch with their spirituality and holistic living following his diagnosis in 2015. It was his dream to go into communities of color and help men get more serious about their health and talk about what’s on their minds in a safe space. He never got the chance.