Near the front window of her Stone Mountain salon, longtime hairstylist Yolanda Sterling stands behind the barber chair, talking to a client in the mirror.
The client is here for the first time to have her hair colored. She is a little nervous. Sterling quickly puts her at ease as she talks through hair color options.
“Those red and orange tones, those warm tones look really nice, especially when the trees start to change, you get those same kind of elements going on,” she said, “so, I think with your curly hair, it’s going to be gorgeous.”
Sterling co-owns this shop called Mane Nutrients Natural Hair Salon. It’s tucked near the back of a shopping center near Stone Mountain Park. She’s been in the industry almost two dozen years. But a few years ago, Sterling said she felt something was off.
“It was one of those situations where I felt like I was in a funk, a transition phase,” she said.
She had recently closed her previous salon business and was spending a lot of time working alone. So, when a friend invited her to go running one morning with a group of women, Sterling said yes.
“It was an eye-opener,” she said. “And then I figured out I was in like a little depression. It made me pay attention to a lot of things that I had been doing, and I realized I needed the same kind of community.”
She kept working out with the group and said that that sense of community helped Sterling navigate out of her depression. And her experience of facing a mental health challenge inspired her to want to help others.
A friend in the running group told her about the Confess Project of Metro Atlanta, a program that trains stylists to become mental health advocates in their salons and communities. It’s designed to harness the unique rapport a stylist can have with their clients in hopes of connecting more Georgia women of color to mental health resources.
“And our mission has always been to…
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