Charlene Sunkel

Ms 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.