Learn about GMHPN from the Global Office team |
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CHARLENE SUNKEL
English, Afrikaans
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Founder & Chief Executive OfficerMs Sunkel is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Mental Health Peer Network, an international peer-led organization focused on empowerment and developing lived experience leadership.
Ms Sunkel is a person with lived experience and a global voice for the rights of people with lived experience of mental health conditions. She authored and co-authored several papers from a lived experience perspective for leading international publications. She was a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development and on the Lancet Commission on the Future of Psychiatry. She Co-Chaired the Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health that was launched on 10 October 2022. Ms Sunkel serves on a number of international boards and committees, and previously been on the South African Presidential Working Group on Disability and Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health. Ms Sunkel is the former Principal Coordinator for the Movement for Global Mental Health. Since 2006, she received a number of national and international awards for her work. Ms Sunkel is one of the recipients of the Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health. |
CLAUDIA SARTORDeputy Chief Executive OfficerClaudia is a global mental health advocacy leader whose passion for mental health was inspired by having personal experience living with anxiety and ADHD. After undergoing treatment, Claudia chose to pursue a career in mental health. She is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Global Mental Health Peer Network (“GMHPN”). She manages GMHPN’s youth related activities and programmes and is co-ordinator and facilitator for youth collaboration with other mental health organisations.
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English, Portuguese
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She co-authored a paper titled "Perspectives: persons with lived experience with mental health conditions in service delivery, development, and leadership" which was published online on 12 May 2021 by Cambridge University Press.
English
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ZAK MARTAHProject Assistant Zakaria is Project Assistant for the Global Mental Health Peer Network and is passionate about helping and advocating for improved care and service delivery of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD’s). His passion for NCD advocacy stems from his lived experience with a brain abscess that caused Epilepsy, Apraxia of speech, and Aphasia. In spite of losing language proficiency in English, Afrikaans, French, and Arabic, he was determined to relearn to speak. The above resulted in experiencing depression.
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However, he was persistent and motivated to learn more about the mind, psychology, and mental health. His family has a history of Type 1 Diabetes, which he too developed in 2011. He was invited to complete a Diabetes leadership course and camp in 2014, and became a Peer Counsellor to other children and teens with diabetes, with a big responsibility being looking after children at camps held for children and teens with diabetes.
