New Mural Delivers Message that 'Mental Health Matters.'

CENTRAL FALLS – On a recent balmy evening at the corner of Dexter and Mowry streets, a small group of volunteers picked up paintbrushes, dipped them in cans of orange paint and started coloring letters on a wall with the message “La Salud Mental Importa” – “Mental Health Matters.”

The message is part of a sprawling mural behind Sparky’s Restaurant in Central Falls that aims to destigmatize conversations about mental health. René Gomez, a muralist, designed the art piece. He wants people who see it to realize that “it’s OK to ask for help.”

Gomez’s words ring loud in heavily Hispanic Central Falls. Between 2017-2021, Hispanics had the second-highest rate of depression among other racial and ethnic groups in Rhode Island, according to a health care professional cited in a report from the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Yet barriers, such as language differences, a high rate of uninsured individuals and stigma, often get in the way of people receiving mental health care.

Artist René Gomez works on the Central Falls mural promoting mental health awareness. Rupert Whiteley photography

“Stigma is a major barrier that people face to getting access to mental health services. [For] a lot of people, especially in our cultures that are prominent in these communities, it's a sign of weakness to have a mental health condition,” said Elizabeth Moreira, an assistant program officer at LISC Rhode Island, a nonprofit that invests in areas such as affordable housing and health equity.

LISC Rhode Island and the area’s Health Equity Zone, an initiative from Rhode Island’s Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, partnered with residents of Central Falls and Pawtucket to decide how to spend a $385,000 grant from Medicaid to address social determinants of health – non-medical factors that have an effect on health outcomes. The cities were engaged in a participatory budgeting process that included town halls and listening sessions. Out of 600 project ideas, the communities voted on a splash pad at John Street Park in Pawtucket, an outdoor gym at Governor Lincoln Park in Central Falls and the anti-mental health stigma campaign behind the mural.

For the mural, LISC Rhode Island partnered with Rhode Island Latino Arts, a community-based organization that promotes the arts, cultural heritage and history of Latinos in the state. Artists submitted designs for two murals to promote mental health, one in Central Falls and another in Pawtucket. Gomez won both bids.

PCF HEZ Mental Health Task Force members Wilma Smith and Bryan Evans, residents of Pawtucket and Central Falls, work on the mural.

Gomez explained that the mural behind Sparky’s Restaurant is full of symbolism: flowers that evoke the idea of renewed growth, a globe that represents the worldwide scope of the problem and hands that are reaching for and eventually holding each other, among other symbols.

Marta Martínez, executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts, said the mural is already prompting conversations about mental health in the community.

“The arts, and public art in this case, have the power to evoke emotions and provoke thought. By engaging residents on an emotional level, in their own language, public art can make mental health messages more impactful and memorable,” Martínez said.

Brichelle Luna, a muralist who also submitted designs for the project, is helping Gomez. She was drawn to the idea of doing a mental health mural out of her own experience as an artist who suffered from postpartum depression.

“I know what it’s like to be in a tough place,” Luna said, adding, “My art is what helped me out of it. It's therapy for me.”

Community members there to assist artist René Gomez in painting the mural behind Sparky's Restaurant in Central Falls, study the plans for the design.

For Gomez, too, the project in some ways is personal. He has a son who is autistic, and he has ADHD. He said people are often hard on themselves, and we all need a little self-compassion.

“One of the things that goes through people's minds sometimes is, ‘Why am I like this? Like, what is wrong with me?’” Gomez said. “There's nothing wrong with that. It's OK to not be OK.”

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