Lakischa Smith

Lakischa Smith, MPH, is the founder of Roots of Healing Wellness, a Black women-centered community wellness organization in New Orleans built around a simple belief: wellness should help us live well, not simply be well.

With a Master of Public Health in Healthcare Management and Policy and a professional background spanning healthcare, behavioral health, and community organizing, Lakischa has spent much of her career thinking about what makes communities healthier—and what is often missing from traditional conversations about health.

Over time, she began to see a gap.

We talk about treatment. We talk about prevention. We talk about nutrition, exercise, stress, and self-care. All of those things matter. But they do not tell the whole story of a person's well-being.

What about the life happening around our health?

Do we have meaningful experiences? Do we have opportunities to learn, move, create, contribute, and explore? Do we feel connected to our culture and community? Do we have somewhere to belong? Something to look forward to? People to turn to during difficult seasons? Are we simply getting through life—or are we actually getting to experience it?

Those questions helped shape Roots of Healing Wellness.

Lakischa's approach recognizes wellness as something much broader than a routine. It is influenced by our relationships, environment, culture, access to resources, opportunities for recreation and learning, sense of purpose, community participation, and the experiences that make life meaningful.

For Black women in particular, she believes the wellness conversation deserves room for more than surviving, managing responsibilities, or recovering from exhaustion. There should also be room for curiosity. Joy. Culture. Movement. New experiences. Contribution. Creativity. Rest. Adventure. Support. And simply enjoying the life you're living.

Through Roots of Healing Wellness, Lakischa is creating opportunities for Black women to experience those things in community—while extending that vision across generations through Moms of Color and L.U.M.I.

Her work brings together wellness experiences, cultural exploration, education, recreation, storytelling, service, community resources, and intergenerational connection. Some moments are about learning. Some are about moving. Some are about giving back. Some are about having difficult conversations. And some are simply about laughing, trying something new, and enjoying being alive.

Because wellness does not mean life will always be easy. There will be grief, change, uncertainty, responsibility, and difficult seasons.

But a well-lived life can have room for all of it.

That is the kind of wellness Lakischa wants to help cultivate: not a perfect life, but a fuller one.

More connection. More culture. More learning. More movement. More contribution. More experiences. More life.

"Wellness is more than how we care for our bodies. It's the quality of the lives we get to live."

"Wellness is more than how we care for our bodies. It's the quality of the lives we get to live."