Ysabel Garcia
A suicide awareness advocate and social justice educator, Ysabel Garcia founded Estoy Aqui, an initiative that focuses on the sociocultural factors contributing to suicide risk in Latino/Latinx and Black communities via training, dialogue, and outreach. Garcia’s experience as a first-generation Dominican immigrant, as well as her lived experience as a psychiatric patient, has influenced her work to dismantle myths and perceived sanism surrounding mental health and suicide.

Garcia regularly collaborates with the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the United Suicide Survivors International Council. Additionally, she often advocates for community care alternatives and peer support methods as viable resources for mental health support. Specifically, her outreach program, La Cultura Sana, offers skills-based dialogues addressing suicide and mental health to key figures in the Latino/x and Black community who provide emotional support as part of their day-to-day work or social roles.

Lastly, Garcia serves as a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Convening Lived Experience & Research Communities group member, Western Massachusetts Training Consortium board member, Hampden County Health Improvement Plan Behavioral Health Domain member, and University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate faculty. She works in Nipmuc and Pocumtuc land, known as Western Massachusetts, and holds a master’s degree in public health.