It was a normal day for Joe Tuia’ana in 2022, living the life of a single father trying to rush his little girls to a basketball game in Lehi. Running late Tuia’ana noticed a man jumping over the safety barrier on an overpass. Thinking quickly, he pulled over and jumped out of the car,” it was just one of those fork-in-the-road moments in my life.”

Tuia’ana accepted the call,” When I stepped out of the car, I felt this, just the weight of the gravity of that moment hit, at first I thought I was going to throw up.” Tuia’ana, who stands at six feet three inches, tried to find a way to make himself less intimidating, “and so I thought, maybe I just opened my arms to him, like I wanted to give him a hug, and maybe that will be less intimidating.”

Tuia’ana walked toward the man repeating one phrase over and over “I love you, bro.” He did this until he got close enough to the man to jump over the barrier and grab the man, carrying him back over the barrier and sliding down in an embrace with the man. “I just sat there and just cried with him. And again, I love you, bro. I just kept saying it over and over. And it’s all that I could say.”

This moment in Tuia’ana’s life is when he decided he wanted to become an advocate for men’s mental health. “Utah has a lot of good, you know, kind of generalized campaigns for mental health, you know, from the FSP, and NAMI, like the big organizations that we partner with, that are good, but very generalized.”

“And so I took all of this passion and empathy that I had for Aaron and created a nonprofit that specifically addressed what he needed and created the ‘I Love You, Bro’ Project, which specifically addresses men’s mental health, suicide prevention for men, and also their ongoing personal development for men. And so it’s been a beautiful thing so far, man.”

The ‘I Love You, Bro’ Project is a nonprofit organization that looks to aid men in their mental health journey. Tuia’ana spoke on the initial plan for the organization,” foundationally, the first idea that I had, as again, just an average Joe, no experience, no formal education on mental health, just for me, I think, and so I’m a very, I like to consider myself a professional human being, meaning I’ve failed so many times and so many different things that I think I have a lot of great wisdom and great street cred.”

“So just as a normal guy, I was thinking, man, well, we have to create a space. And I guess the popular, I should say verbiage for it is a safe space, men, we don’t really want to hear that we don’t like to be safe. We’re dangerous, we’re strong, and all that stuff. But a place where it’s judgment-free, for men to have connections to the possibility of connecting with other men via mutual struggle and challenge”

Tuia’ana hosted his first group in North Provo, but the groups have now spread across the Wasatch front, providing a free and accessible place for men to gather and connect. But Tuia’ana wants to expand more, eventually, he wants these groups available within a 20-minute drive.

The ‘I Love You, Bro’ Project also offers other support services including their ‘Let’s Grow’ program, which Tuia’ana described as,” our professional workshops that we bring in clinicians, professionals, people who are masters in their craft, and what they do to teach our guys or men about some things that we just don’t have access to learning about unless we YouTube or Google it. And some of those things like our last workshop was on grief and grief management.” Other topics the workshops have covered included proper breathing techniques.

The third program the project offers is an opportunity for talk therapy with a licensed clinician,” it’s called ‘you and me bro’, where we offer free talk therapy for men who can’t afford it. And to qualify for it, men have to attend six of our support groups.” Tuia’ana continued,” And so it’s, it takes a guy who’s going to be active, and he’s going to be involved in his mental health journey.

The organization states its two-pronged mission on its website, firstly,” To promote hope, wellness, and a better quality of life for all men, by addressing their mental health needs, social and emotional issues, and ongoing self-improvement.” And secondly,” To change the toxic social stigma shadowing men’s mental health by being a leader in educating, inspiring, and empowering men everywhere.”

Speaking on the second prong, Tuia’ana discussed how we could potentially work to break the social stigma around men’s mental health. “ Stigma is the number one thing that is stopping or halting people from getting help. So with men’s mental health, it’s even more challenging. Because, you know, you first identify why their stigma specifically with men, we have that provide, preside, protect mentality.”

Tuia’ana continued,” And I’ll tell you when men don’t feel like they are hitting those three things, say they’re making enough money and they feel like they’re a good leader. But if they don’t have that physique, if they’re missing one of those three things or multiple, then the men start questioning their value and their worth.”

Tuia’ana explained how the ‘I Love You, Bro’ Project aims to address these stigmas,” So when we’re talking about stigma, and what, what we can do, that’s the first thing we need to talk about are just these men are men in general who have, who, who have society painted a picture on what we need to do and what we need to look like and be like, to be “real men.” And so the challenge for the ‘I Love You, Bro’ project is not just creating these great programs for men, but getting these guys to show up.”

Our penultimate topic with Tuia’ana was how to get in touch with the organization. He shared that first to follow them on social media on both their Instagram and Facebook pages. The organization can also be found on its website iloveyoubroproject.org.

Closing out the interview, Tuia’ana shared this message,” You are not alone, you’re never alone.” He continued,” Let’s start healing together, we’ll struggle through it together, together through fire.”