Charlamagne Tha God Launches MWA Foundation For Black Mental Health and Generational Support To Black Communities

Charlamagne Tha God has announced the Mental Wealth Alliance (MWA) launch, his forward-thinking foundation to destigmatize, speed up, and center state-of-the-art mental health outreach treatment across the U.S. while establishing an unparalleled long-term generational support structure for Black communities.

“My founding of the Mental Wealth Alliance is the manifestation of a deeply personal vision,” says Charlamagne. “I believe improving Black mental health is a core tenet of restoring souls, igniting wealth, and inspiring upliftment for Black America.”

Over five years, the revolutionary initiative will raise $100 million and partner with Black-led organizations and experts to enable the three core pillars of the life-changing effects of MWA:

• Train – prepare thousands of Black people to become research and clinical services providers in psychology, psychiatry, social work, and related fields.
• Teach – advocate for the implementation of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Mental Health Literacy (MHL) in public K-12 education nationwide.
• Treat – support Black-led and culturally-competent organizations to provide free therapy to more than 10 million Black Americans within 5 years.

In the best-selling novel, Shook One, published by Simon & Schuster, Charlamagne has publicly focused on his path of self-discovery and recovery through psychotherapy to address trauma, anxiety, and depression.  He has been a vocal advocate for those with these issues for a long time, working actively with local, state, and federal officials to promote much needed Black mental health legislation.

Most recently, in support of her mental health platform for America, he expressed his vision with Vice President Kamala Harris during her candidacy. To ensure concentrated funding for Black mental health, MWA is pleased to support HR 5469, the PURSUING Equality IN MENTAL HEALTH ACT bill authored by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Charlamagne has also acted as a catalyzing leader at the forefront of the national mental health debate, strategically positioned at the epicenter of Black culture’s changing tectonic plates. He has not only illustrated the tragedy of untreated mental illness through the truthful revealing of his own mental health journey in the wake of losing many close friends to suicide, but he has also become a lodestone for others to follow in his footsteps.

Additionally, he brought into sharp focus the degree to which mental illness frequently goes undiagnosed and untreated, with an influence spanning society’s intersectionality and all the industries that the mounting mental health crisis affects. Myriad celebrities have come forward to expose their own challenges inside the profound glare of the spotlight in movies, sports, and other public-eye careers, finding motivation for doing so in the words and actions of Charlamagne.

“A strange thing happens when you start to tell your story,” he said. “It encourages other people to tell theirs, and slowly but surely the stigma around mental health in the Black community starts to dissipate because folks learn that it’s ok to not be ok and more importantly seek help for not being ok. It was never in my plans to become a mental health advocate, but after I started discussing my journey, writing about it in my second book, Shook One, talking about therapy, and sharing life experiences with listeners, a lot of people reached out to me. I want to be a part of providing that help. That’s why I created MWA.”

As many organizations strive to transform their own communities and engage in meaningful change, many have considered MWA to be an articulate prescription for fixing what has been systemically wrong for too long, with its focus on the value of cultural competence when identifying and addressing black mental health problems and its systematic plan for achieving lasting results. MWA is off to an auspicious start and is well-positioned to achieve spectacular success with impressively generous donations already coming from major businesses and high-profile people motivated by the cause.

Jeff Harleston, General Counsel and EVP of Business and Legal Affairs, UMG, and interim CEO, Def Jam Recordings said, “Today like never before, the need for mental health awareness, education, and treatment in the black community has risen to the forefront. The work of Charlamagne and the MWA to break down the stigma of mental health treatment and to provide access to support is incredibly important during these extraordinary times.”