Jina Etienne—a licensed social worker, author, and founder of Haitian Girls Brunch and The Bougie Social Work Girl—knows what it means to break down before building something transformative. For her, healing wasn’t a passive process; it was an active reckoning with pain, silence, and systems that demanded endurance but never offered restoration.
“Both were born out of moments that shattered me—and ultimately set me free,” Jina says.
Leaving a toxic relationship was the first breaking point. It forced her to confront deeply rooted emotional pain, generational silence, and what she calls a “mother wound” that had long gone unspoken. As she began to heal, she penned a book that gave language to the uniquely layered experiences of Haitian girls—experiences often unacknowledged or misunderstood. That book became the soil from which Haitian Girls Brunch grew. What started as a gathering blossomed into a movement—an affirming space where Haitian women come together to heal, celebrate their culture, and reclaim their voices.
“Haitian Girls Brunch is my love letter to Haitian women and girls,” Jina reflects. “It’s what poetry feels like when it becomes lived—walking affirmations turned into community.”
At the same time, another struggle was simmering beneath the surface. Within her career in social work—a field built around care—she found herself drowning in a culture that normalized burnout and treated boundaries as rebellion. For Black women, the weight was heavier. The expectation was silent endurance. Her departure from that space was a glow-up rooted not in aesthetic, but in spiritual and emotional reclamation.
Out of that, The Bougie Social Work Girl was born—a platform that invites Black women in helping professions to center rest, joy, and well-being without apology. “Self-care and rest are not luxuries—they are survival,” she says. “This platform is a reminder that we, especially Black women in helping professions, are allowed to set boundaries, protect our energy, and search for healthy, safe work environments that honor our worth.”
Jina’s story is rich with cultural resilience and radical self-love. Her work dives deep into themes often considered taboo—like the mother wound and generational silence. Through Haitian Girls Brunch, she creates a space to challenge that silence, to confront the emotional weight passed down through generations, and to remind Haitian women: survival isn’t the finish line. “You deserve more than survival,” she insists. “You deserve peace, affirmation, and freedom from the weight of inherited pain.”
Both platforms are grounded in the belief that healing is not only possible, but powerful—that transformation is available to those willing to walk away from what no longer serves them. “The turning point came when I realized how much I had evolved by walking away from situations that no longer allowed me to grow,” she recalls. “Healing isn’t just personal, it’s powerful. It’s the beginning of becoming who you were always meant to be.”
To readers of FEMI, Jina offers a final truth wrapped in love and revolution: “Choosing yourself is not selfish—it’s sacred. Your softness is not a weakness. Your joy is not too much. You don’t have to carry pain to prove you’re strong. You can be whole. You can be free. You can create something powerful from the very places you thought would break you.”
And in doing so, you won’t just heal yourself—you’ll ignite the courage for others to rise, too.
Images Courtesy of Jina Etienne.
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