Kyana Brown returned to her hometown of San Antonio, Corozal to launch her program Project Safe Space under Project Jumpstart Belize. Kyana Brown now resides abroad in Georgia, USA and has just recently graduated with her Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. She was adamant about bringing her expertise back home to Belize for the betterment of her people. Her passion for both mental health and the youth inspired the creation of this program. Project Safe Space aims to create awareness and a positive community surrounding the topic of mental health, which is not broadly addressed in the country of Belize. It is a group therapeutic workshop which focuses on introducing students to various social, emotional, and behavioral skills as well as an additional trauma workshop. Through this program, Kyana hosted a number of school aged children, ages 7 - 17.

This program launched at San Antonio Government School in San Antonio Corozal on December 16th, 2024 with the support of the school’s principal Mrs. Sucely Hill and Project Jumpstart Belize’s Janice Jacobs Palmer. Project Safe Space ran for a total of 4 days with two main components. The first is the main workshop that was conducted over a 4.5 hour period.

This workshop focused on multiple aspects of behavior and emotions. In these group sessions students learnt concepts such as how to identify and show an array of emotions, how to cope with overwhelming feelings, how to step out of their comfort zone in a more positive way, how to handle conflict and adversity, how to improve self esteem, relaxation techniques etc. This is done through narrative therapy, art therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. The second component was done on a more intimate scale. Each day students who were recommended by Principal Hill and parents, stayed behind for an hour long trauma focused group session. Within these sessions, Mrs. Brown discussed topics such as grief and loss, familial conflict, community influences and its impact and personal traumatic experiences. Some students did not know how to identify and cope with the trauma that they have lived through. The session allowed students to address their more personal situations and gave them the opportunity to ask more detailed questions about their experiences, whereas the earlier group workshop was more tailored to general issues.

Mrs. Brown plans to follow up with all participating students to assess the level of behavioral change the program has made. Anticipating positive results, Mrs. Brown also plans to continue to operate and expand Project Safe Space to different communities in Belize.