Rounding out BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month, this special episode of The Unfolding: Presented by #TheLovelandFoundation Podcast, is one of our best yet. Host, @Miriam.Starobin, interviews Denise Beek and Shesheena Bray from Me Too, International. 

Denise Beek is a communications strategist who has worked in the nonprofit sector for over a decade. She is a Caribbean-American performance writer, improv artist, and board member of the BlackStar Film Festival. As Chief Communications Officer for ‘me too.’, she oversees external communications, engages with its stakeholders, and creates strategies to raise the visibility of the organization and center survivors. She works primarily to change the way people talk about sexual violence, this movement’s work, and survivorship. Denise’s professional trajectory is undergirded by her passion for gender equity and racial justice. Her experience is a mix of arts administration, cultural production and community engagement at organizations like the Painted Bride Art Center, the Black Lily Film & Music Festival, and the Union Square Awards. From 2013-2018, she served as Communications Director for the Leeway Foundation, a regional grantmaker that supports women, trans, and gender nonconforming artists in Greater Philadelphia.

Shesheena Bray, Director of Programs: Mother, therapist, activist, educator. Shesheena A. Bray is a Boston native who has taken up roots in Philadelphia. Shesheena came to Philadelphia to attend Temple University in 2003 and fell in love with the rich culture of the city. In service to her new home, Shesheena dedicated over a decade to deepening her understanding of her community’s needs as an educator and social justice advocate. In 2014, Shesheena realized her service to Black and Brown communities was best actualized through her passion, mental and emotional wellness. Honing her focus and training, Shesheena earned her M.S.Ed in mental health counseling from The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education in 2016. In 2017, Shesheena launched Going Inward Wellness, LLC. Through Going Inward Wellness, LLC Shesheena sees individuals and couples for psychotherapy; hosts wellness workshops for global majority women; teaches mindfulness to youth and adults; and hosts a 10-day morning routine program, The Morning Routine Refresh. Notable assignments and partnerships include The People’s Emergency Center; the Life After Trauma Organization (LATO); the North Philadelphia Community Healing Project; Village of Arts and Humanity; GirlTrek; What is Mindfulness (WIM); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and ArtWell. You can also join Shesheena at her weekly virtual meditations, The 720 Meditation.

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The Unfolding: Presented by The Loveland Foundation podcast is here to embrace the tough conversations and offer a new healing modality through vulnerability, honesty, and reciprocity. When we unfold we are committing to an exercise in compassion. Unfolding is language turned into behavior, an energetic exchange, through conversation, which supports you walking towards yourself.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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The Loveland Foundation is committed to showing up for communities of color in unique and powerful ways, with a particular focus on Black women and girls.

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