image: Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong
Credit: BBRF
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation today announced that Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong is the recipient of the 2024 Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health. She is recognized for her profound humanitarian impact as a champion of mental health rights and a prominent force for healing in Africa. As the founder and president of the Afrogiveness Center, she has utilized the universal language and cathartic power of the arts to heal survivors of conflict and intolerance.
The Honorary 2024 Pardes Prize recipient is the Graham Boeckh Foundation for its work in improving mental health care for people living with or at risk for mental illness. The private foundation has supported youth mental health services and mental health research throughout Canada.
“Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong is an extraordinary humanitarian who has consistently emphasized the importance of personal healing, mental health, and spiritual well-being as necessary components of sustainable peace, human rights and prosperity. We applaud her tremendous work,” said Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, president and CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. “We also salute the Graham Boeckh Foundation for its outstanding contributions in mental health advocacy and support of programs that bring mental health services to young people.”
2024 Pardes Prize Recipient Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong
Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong is a Cameroonian Art Therapist/Psychologist whose advocacy to promote tolerance, forgiveness, mental health, and human fraternity has made her a leading force for healing in Africa. She is the founder and president of the Afrogiveness Center, coined from the words “Africa” and “Forgiveness,” which provides a safe space for mentally traumatized individuals, offering an antidote to hate crimes, retaliatory emotions, and violent extremism. Her work fosters forgiveness, dialogue, mutual understanding, and peaceful coexistence among youth from diverse backgrounds. The Center offers psychosocial, educational, legal, and socio-economic support to mentally traumatized survivors of conflict and intolerance.
Before founding Afrogiveness, Franca Ma-ih Sulem Yong, was a journalist seeking to change the way mental illness is perceived and represented in society. She is also the founder of Positive Youths Africa (PYA), a nonprofit magazine aimed at inspiring, engaging, and empowering young people to live a positive and purposeful life. Drawing on the principle that unresolved trauma can perpetuate cycles of violence, she has consistently emphasized the importance of personal healing, mental health and spiritual wellbeing as necessary components of sustainable peace, human rights, and prosperity.
The Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health, which carries an honorarium of $100,000, is awarded annually to recognize an individual or organization whose contributions have made a profound and lasting impact in advancing the understanding of mental health and improving the lives of people who are living with mental illness. It focuses public attention on the burden mental illness places on individuals and society and the urgent need to expand mental health services globally. Established in 2014, the Pardes Prize is named in honor of the late Herbert Pardes, M.D., the internationally renowned psychiatrist, outspoken advocate for the mentally ill, and the award’s first recipient.
2024 Honorary Pardes Humanitarian Prize Recipient the Graham Boeckh Foundation
The Graham Boeckh Foundation (GBF) is a private foundation created in 1990 by J. Anthony Boeckh, his wife Raymonde and his family to honor their son who died from complications related to schizophrenia in 1986. Its mission is to change the mental health care system, help save lives and improve outcomes for Canadian families. The Boeckh Foundation has done this primarily by focusing on the development of Integrated Youth Services hubs across all the Canadian provinces and territories, including in cities, rural and remote areas, and Indigenous communities. Integrated Youth Services provides a holistic suite of services that are easily accessible to youth aged 12 through 25. The collection of data from the hubs is a key component in the Foundation’s drive to create a learning health care system that will greatly improve the delivery of services to patients and families suffering from psychiatric illnesses.
About the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation awards research grants to develop improved treatments, cures, and methods of prevention for mental illness. These illnesses include addiction, ADHD, anxiety, autism, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, eating disorders, OCD, PTSD, and schizophrenia, as well as research on suicide prevention. Since 1987, the Foundation has awarded more than $461 million to fund more than 5,600 leading scientists around the world. 100% of every dollar donated for research is invested in research. BBRF operating expenses are covered by separate foundation grants. BBRF is the producer of the Emmy® nominated public television series Healthy Minds with Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, which aims to remove the stigma of mental illness and demonstrate that with help there is hope.