There is only one Licensed Mental Health Counselor on island who can speak five languages, and her name is Moirar Leveille. Since its days as a central port in the whaling industry, Nantucket has always been home to a thriving international community. However, language barriers can create gaps in the availability of vital resources and communication within the community on the island. Moirar Leveille hopes to bridge these gaps. Born in Haiti and having spent a portion of her life in Costa Rica before moving to Nantucket full-time, Leveille is proficient in French, Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Creole. This strength uniquely allows her to serve a variety of clients on island who would otherwise go without care.
“Language is huge,” said Leveille. “Having the cultural competence that comes with having lived in a country and knowing the language makes it so I can connect and understand my clients that much more.”
Helping others has always been a passion of Leveille’s. She grew up attending Catholic school where supporting the poorest and least fortunate were central tenets of her education and development. Although she considered becoming a nun at one point in her life, she instead opted to become a mental health counselor, life coach, and most recently, a motivational speaker.
Leveille has lived on Nantucket for over 20 years, and first arrived on island on a work and travel program sponsored through the university she attended in Costa Rica. She had received her bachelor’s degree in finance, and so ended up working at the bank, as well as at a coffee shop downtown on the side. She developed a close relationship with her boss, Susan Fisher who owned Fast Forward and Espresso to Go at the time.
Were it not for this friendship, Leveille may have left the island for good once her program ended.
“When I came here, my intention was to never come back,” Said Leveille. “I came here in the winter and it was summer time in Costa Rica, and I faced every hardship you can think of as someone in the cold coming from a warm place.”
“I had no car, I had to walk everywhere, and found a job making seven dollars an hour. And basically all of the money I was making went to pay rent.”
“It’s been a long journey,” chuckled Leveille.
But, Leveille insists, these bumps along the way are what continue to inspire her. After leaving the island and working throughout Europe as a teacher, Fisher implored Leveille to give Nantucket another try.
“I was sure and certain I was never coming back,” said Leveille, “But Susan [Fisher] said to me, ‘your experience was really bad during the winter, come here during the summer time, you won’t regret it.’”
Leveille relented, and experienced a shift during that summer. She met the man that would become her husband and got deeply involved in the community. Then, days before she was scheduled to return to Costa Rica, she got into a major car accident in New York. This completely upended her travel plans and put her in the hospital for months.
“That changed my life forever, I couldn’t travel anymore,” said Leveille.
Leveille opted to return to Nantucket to continue working, as it was the only place in the United States where she felt at home.
“I came back to Nantucket because that’s where I knew best,” said Leveille.
Upon returning, Leveille fully embraced her life on Nantucket. She started working at the bank full time and got married. Soon after she had her first daughter, Brianna, who would go on to win the Nantucket Golf Club Scholarship in 2020.
During this time, Leveille also started working as a nurse’s assistant at Our Island Home. She decided to go back to school to become a Mental Health Counselor at Fairwinds to continue her focus on helping others.. She worked at Fairwinds for 10 years, and then decided to open her own practice in 2020.
“I opened, and then the pandemic hit, so I gave a lot of free counseling at that time,” said Leveille. The pandemic also provided her with an opportunity to pursue her interest in public speaking, where she could reach a wider audience and help more people free of charge. Initially, this took the shape of quick videos she would post on Facebook of herself giving advice. But, in the world of the internet, where talent becomes viral, Leveille’s popularity swelled and soon she was being mentored by big names in the world of motivational speaking.
“I became more fearless during the pandemic,” said Leveille. “I had had a little experience with public speaking before, I spoke at the Nantucket Project a couple of years ago. But I had never been mentored before.”
“When I discovered my potential I found all of the people I was supposed to be mentored by.”
Tony Robbins, Les Brown, and Lisa Nichols have all helped Leveille on her way.
“These people molded me to become the motivational speaker and the therapist that I am today,” said Leveille.
Leveille’s career as a motivational speaker is indeed taking off, and has given international talks via Zoom which highlight her language skills, and she has been able to grow her client base and now sees people from all over the world. Most recently, she was invited to Dallas to be featured in the Amazon Prime series “Speak Up” which features inspirational speakers giving talks in front of a live audience.
“My goal is to inspire at least one billion people in the next ten years,” said Leveille. “I want people to know that life is what you make of it, you don’t get the life that you deserve, you get the life that you create.”
