INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Haitian and Burmese communities in Indianapolis are getting a new boost from the city through new Behavioral Health Cultural Equity grants.

Martine Romy Bernard-Tucker, director of the Office of Public Health and Safety; Leonce Jean-Baptiste, chair of the Haitian Association of Indianapolis; and Klem Kyin Kio, advisor for the Burmese community in North America, appeared on Daybreak to discuss the details of the new grants and their potential benefits.

“We understand the importance of behavioral health, especially as a measure of prevention. And so these grants are really to make sure that we understand that behavioral health is not a one-size-fits-all. And so it has to be closely competent if you need to give people services for them to understand and really benefit from it. It has to touch the person as a whole,” Bernard-Tucker said.

Jean-Baptiste shared with News 8 that he has personal experience with mental health challenges, having lived through a brutal dictatorship in Haiti during the 1990s.

“So when I got here, I was having a nightmare, you know, sweating and I’m waking up in the, you know, in the middle of the night, not realizing that this was PTSD. So, it’s deeply personal. So I understand in our (Haitian) community, it’s highly stigmatized. So there’s no discussion about it,” he said.

Jean-Baptiste added, “This grant is going to tremendously impact our community as it will help train health professional people who speak the language that is trusted by the community that is embedded into providing them the help that they really need.”

“In Burmese community, our cultural makeup is we are attached to each other. We love our family, we love each other. So mental problems or behavioral problems are not that much in our country,” Kyin Kio said.

To learn more, watch the full interview above.