Jasha Lyons Echo-Hawk: Advocating for the Mental Health of Indigenous Populations

Mental Health Download: Exploring Mental Illness, Suicide, Homelessness and Incarceration

Our guest is Jasha Lyons Echo-Hawk. She is a life-long justice seeker, community builder, and part-time marathoner. She is Two-spirit and a proud tribal citizen of the Seminole Nation, as well as a member of the Pawnee, Iowa, Omaha, and Creek Nations. She carries the name Ti-tatatsiks-stariiku.

Jasha’s advocacy has largely been focused in rural Oklahoma and she has organized around such issues as healthcare access, violence against women, breast/chestfeeding advocacy, body sovereignty and birth justice, food sovereignty, gun violence prevention, criminal justice reform, Census & Natives Vote 2020, and as a former political candidate.

Jasha’s recent concentration is in the reclamation of birthkeeping and she has been honored to hold space for families and community as a trained Birthworker and a student midwife. She has recently joined the team at the Tulsa Birth Equity Initiative as a Community-Based Doula & Native Service Coordinator.

Additionally, Jasha has also helped to found Native Breastfeeding Week and is in pursuit of a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous People’s Law at the University of Oklahoma’s College of Law. She maintains an active lifestyle with her spouse, Bunky, and their four children.