Magdel Hammond

Magdel has been the National Manager Mind & Body and Lived Experience at Emerge Aotearoa since 2019. She is a member of the Emerge Aotearoa Group Executive Team. Magdel is passionate about creating spaces that allow the voices of lived experience to grow their presence and influence in Aotearoa.

Before joining Mind & Body, Magdel was the National Manager for Lived Experience within Emerge Aotearoa. This role gave her a good understanding of the broader organisation and helped her shape a vision for the role of Mind & Body within the wider Trust Group.

Magdel began working in New Zealand as an employment consultant in the supported employment sector. The role helped shape her perspective of lived experience and the peer workforce, and she became a strong advocate for offering people opportunities to realise their potential through meaningful employment. Since then, Magdel has gained extensive experience in the peer and lived experience sector. In her previous roles working in NGOs, she focused on the design, development, delivery and evaluation of peer support services.  Magdel has always had a keen interest in workforce development and has been involved in developing and delivering peer employment training, as well as developing strategic initiatives to support the peer and lived experience workforce.

Magdel has also worked as Consumer and Whānau Consultant at Waitematā District Health Board, where she supported a team of 12 consumer advisors to engage in systemic advocacy and change. This role was a foundation for her to continue advocating for changes across the broader mental health and addiction system, and the elimination of marginalisation, prejudice and discrimination.

Magdel is originally from South Africa and spent nine years in Namibia before she immigrated to New Zealand in 2002 with her husband and two children.  She worked as a mental health and medical social worker and spent five years as an HR officer in the corporate sector.

She has a Bachelor in Social Work, a Graduate Diploma in Not for Profit Management, a Post Graduate Certificate in Strategic Management and in 2015, she graduated from the BluePrint Leadership Development Programme.