Claudia Sendanyoye

Claudia Sendanyoye is from the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territory of the Algonquin Nation. Sendanyoye is a health policy professional who is strongly committed to advancing equitable social change. She specializes in social policy, EDI policy, and disability and mental health policy. Her current work as an analyst at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research focuses on the identification, removal, and prevention of barriers to accessibility and issues of ableism in policy and programs design and delivery in health research funding.

Sendanyoye is also a passionate community care worker, peer support facilitator, and research advisor. Her work is rooted in disability justice and mad liberation praxis. She operates from an anti-racist, anti-sanist, anti-ableist, and anti-carceral lens to contribute to culturally responsive and liberatory healing spaces among fellow MMIND [Mad, labeled as “Mentally Ill”, Neurodivergent, and Disabled] communities. She facilitates ACB [African, Caribbean, and Black] and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of colour] peer support groups for youth and adults at Psychiatric Survivors of Ottawa and the Canadian Women of Colour Leadership Network. Additionally, Sendanyoye serves as a family research advisor at CAMH on projects related to early psychosis and altered states.