Join Peter Yaro (CEO, BasicNeeds Ghana) and Tam Nguyen (CEO, BasicNeeds Vietnam) in conversation with Chris Underhill as they reflect on the journey of BasicNeeds during the next Catalyst Mental Health Collaboration webinar: 25 Years of Impact - The Story of BasicNeeds.

Together, they’ll share stories from the field, explore hard-earned lessons, and look ahead to the future.

About BasicNeeds:

Founded in 2000 by social entrepreneur Chris Underhill and partners from the Global South, BasicNeeds pioneered a community-based approach to mental health and development. At the heart of this approach was the BasicNeeds Model (also known as the Model for Mental Health and Development), which mobilizes local resources to deliver cost-effective, holistic mental health services.

Over time, country programmes became independently registered organisations, continuing to sustain the work. In 2022, they came together with CBM to form the BasicNeeds Network, a platform that strengthens local action while fostering global advocacy and knowledge-sharing.

Speakers

Chris Underhill: Chris Underhill MBE works as a mentor and is a social entrepreneur in the field of quality of life, and mental health in the community. Drawing on his lived experience as a child, he has spent many years “hands-on” in the field and sets great store by his work in interpersonal relations. Chris has developed a number of social enterprises, for example Thrive, an organisation working in gardening, disability and community (www.thrive.org.uk), and ADD International (www.add.org.uk), working in the developing world with disabled people creating systems of representation, advocacy and policy development. He has built several organisations in the field of global mental health, for example, BasicNeeds, which promotes the Model for Mental Health and Development created by Chris in 2000. There are now a number of BasicNeeds organisations (e.g. Ghana, Kenya, and Vietnam) which continue to spread his important message. Chris runs his own mentoring practice called Mentor Services (www.mentorservices.org.uk) and presents on health, quality of life, mental health, and resilience. Chris is co-founder of a new organisation benefitting social entrepreneurs: The Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs (www.elderscouncil.net), and is Chair of the Catalyst-2030 Mental Health Collaboration. He is a Skoll Foundation awardee in Social Entrepreneurship, an awardee in Social Entrepreneurship of the Schwab Foundation, and a Senior Fellow of Ashoka and has been honoured with an MBE by HRH Queen Elizabeth II for his work in disability.

Peter Badimak YARO: Peter Badimak YARO is the Executive Director of BasicNeeds-Ghana. He is a nonprofit/civil society leader, development director, and public mental health specialist and mental health advocate. Peter has over two decades of Ghana and international-level work experience in leading and promoting secure, rights-based, and inclusive people-centred development. He is experienced in driving organisational growth through astute leadership, strong fundraising and funder management, development abilities, and programme execution. He has wide work experience in Sub-Saharan African countries and South-East Asia through his work with BasicNeeds, in which he has provided technical expertise in mental health programme start-ups, evaluation, and scale-ups. He is involved in multi-country, multi-site research projects; current ones being the UK NIHR global research group programme funded HOPE Africa and Y-MIND intervention projects, and the Canada IDRC funded HHSDGs Think Tank. Peter has a PhD in Public Health, concentrating on mental health policy and services, integrating mental health into Primary Health Care, and community health system strengthening. He is a Fellow of the Africa CDC Kofi Annan Fellowship in Global Public Health Leadership, which has imbued him with public health diplomacy, public health emergency preparedness, and response competencies.

Tam Nguyen: Tam Nguyen is the director of BasicNeeds Vietnam (BNVN) – an international NGO that belongs to the BasicNeeds global network, well-known in community-based mental health and mental health promotion. Tam was mentored by world-leading mental health experts, such as Prof. Vikram Patel, Chris Underhill, MBE, on community-based mental health, global mental health, and social medicine. She won a scholarship to study International Mental Health Leadership at the University of Melbourne. Tam leads several important pioneer projects on community-based mental health care and has received national and international recognition for her work. She has been invited by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, and the WHO to join important pilot projects on community-based mental health services development for anxiety, depression management. She received several awards from the Provincial People Committees, Provincial Department of Health, and UN Innovation Award in recognition of her innovation and achievement.

About Catalyst 2030: Mental Health Collaboration

The Catalyst 2030: Mental Health Collaboration creates opportunities for global collaboration between funder networks and mental health social entrepreneurs with tangible tools and resources to create a systemic impact.

The collaboration seeks to educate funders, social innovators, corporates, and policymakers on the intersectionality of mental health with other social justice systems. These include gender, climate change, education, healthcare, etc., to enhance cross-sector collaborations to integrate mental health work into other social justice issues.