Founder of The Mental Health Association Switzerland and Coffee Foundation

Our dream is a world where mental health is treated with the same care and compassion as physical health.

Damien O’Brien is the founder of The Mental Health Association Switzerland and Coffee Foundation, a global award-winning mental health awareness and suicide-prevention movement. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder — and having endured the tragic losses of his mother to suicide and his brother to addiction after long battles with mental illness — Damien has transformed profound personal pain into purpose, championing vulnerability as a superpower and reclaiming the word “crazy” to fight back against the mental health crisis.

Raised in the social housing neighborhoods of South Sydney and Mt Druitt, Australia — where “crazy” was the norm amid volatility and destructive environments — Damien tried to hide his wounds behind superficial success and a corporate career with leading multinational companies. But he could not outrun the darkness of untreated mental illness, which led to alcohol addiction, psychiatric hospitalization, and rock bottom — a path that nearly ended fatally without intervention.

With the unwavering support of his village — his wife, his family, and the close artist friends who stood by him — he achieved six years of sobriety, deep self-acceptance, and effective treatment. Through that journey, he discovered his true purpose: sparking life-saving conversations through authentic advocacy and reminding people to look out for their village.

Unlike traditional experts, Damien speaks from lived experience — removing the masks we all wear to hide vulnerability, using raw honesty, humor, and courage to connect with everyone from young people on the streets to CEOs in boardrooms, free from mental-health washing.

His collaborations with world-class artists and creators have earned global recognition, including the 2026 Givsly Impact Award Gold in New York for Campaigns With Conviction, World Brand Design Society Silver, and Brand Impact Awards Bronze.

Damien invites us to help set millions free — and to contribute to suicide-prevention efforts — by investing more time in our personal relationships and strengthening informal support networks. He encourages friends, families, and colleagues to stay alert to those around them, to have a conversation when they notice signs of distress or difficulty, and to help connect someone to appropriate support long before they reach a crisis point.

Free from shame, he shows that mental illness does not discriminate — and that breaking the silence saves lives.

Fight with us — or just Call Us Crazy!

Foreign Affairs Journalist at SWI swissinfo.ch

Elena Servettaz is an investigative journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker with over 25 years of experience in international media. A graduate of Moscow State University and the French Press Institute in Paris, she has worked as a television and radio host in France and Russia. Based in Switzerland, she is a Foreign Affairs journalist at SWI swissinfo.ch. Elena leads cross-border investigations, covers international relations, and conducts deeply personal interviews on power, repression, and resistance. She has also taught journalism and communications and is the mother of three children.

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Leonilda Renaldo coaches aspiring leaders who've mastered every language except their own. Raised by Spanish-speaking parents who spoke anyway – imperfectly, defiantly – she learned that authenticity outlasts approval. Now she plants this idea in global workplaces: your rough edges prove you're irreplaceable. Working at the intersection of emotional intelligence and personal leadership, Leonilda helps professionals hold an impossible truth – belonging and authenticity rarely arrive together. So we choose authenticity. We speak imperfectly in a world demanding perfection. We speak anyway.

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Mark Moser is a lecturer, consultant, and bridge-builder working at the crossroads of intercultural communication, conflict transformation, and security. He teaches at several universities and advises organisations with a strong focus on communication and intercultural competence in modern policing and public institutions. Former Secretary General of an international health organisation, he brings over 15 years of leadership experience across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Raised in Papua New Guinea, Mark now lives in Switzerland and Southeast Asia, navigating cultures as both home and horizon.

Head of the Special Initiative on Health and Migration at the WHO

Dr Santino Severoni is Head of the Special Initiative on Health and Migration at the World Health Organization (WHO). From 2020 to 2025, he served as Director of Health and Migration, during which time he established and led the WHO Global Programme on Health and Migration, positioning it as a central pillar of the Organization’s work on equity, mobility and inclusive health systems.

A senior public health leader with more than two decades of experience, Dr Severoni has worked across WHO headquarters, regional and country offices, holding leadership roles in health emergencies, health systems strengthening and communicable disease control. He has supported Member States in crisis-affected and migration-impacted contexts, including during large-scale population movements and complex humanitarian emergencies.

Dr Severoni has been instrumental in shaping the global agenda on refugee and migrant health, including the development and implementation of the Global Action Plan on Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants (2019–2030). His work emphasizes rights-based, evidence-informed and whole-of-government approaches that advance Universal Health Coverage and leave no one behind.

Recognised internationally for his strategic vision and diplomatic leadership, Dr Severoni regularly represents WHO at high-level global fora and contributes to international dialogue at the intersection of health, migration, climate change and social cohesion.

Communications Specialist

Vivian Ejezie is a communications professional with a background in gender, media, and human rights. She holds a Master’s degree in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute, Geneva, where her research explored how media shapes perceptions of women and gender-based violence in Nigeria. Vivian has worked with diverse international organisations including ICRC, UNFPA, OHCHR and IUCN. She is the founder of Days of Future Past, an annual poetry event in Geneva focused on connection and healing and she volunteers with Youth Hut Foundation in their work to empower teenagers with leadership skills needed to navigate adulthood.

Global Health Leader

Wahid Majrooh, MD, MSc, MA, MAS is a global health leader and former Minister of Public Health of Afghanistan, who led the country’s health system through COVID-19 and conflict emergency. Shaped by firsthand experience of crisis, he founded the Afghanistan Center for Health and Peace Studies in Geneva and serves as an Executive-in-Residence Fellow at GCSP and an Academic Fellow at the Geneva Humanitarian Studies Center. His work focuses on global health diplomacy, health system strengthening, geopolitics, politics of global health and leadership in fragile settings.