The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) Global Programme against Stigma and Discrimination because of Schizophrenia was started in 1996 when I became President of the WPA. Initially, we saw it as a policy initiative, not as a specific programme.

My colleagues from the Executive Committee of the WPA (in particular, Professor Juan Jose Lopez-Ibor, then President-Elect of the WPA) and I spoke with possible supporters of an operational arm to the anti-stigmatization policy, including staff of foundations, government agencies, directors of health programmes and representatives of pharmaceutical companies.

While many lauded the initiative, few expressed an interest in joining the effort and even fewer were willing to contribute to a programme in a concrete way. Not so Mr R. Postlethwaite, at the time Vice-President and Director of the Neuroscience Department of the Eli Lilly and Company. He, like others expressed his strong approval of the idea but also sought support from within his company. Dr M. Xilinas, at that time working with Eli Lilly and Company in Geneva, provided invaluable help in the administrative arrangements that followed and WPA soon received a formal confirmation that Eli Lilly would provide some funds to support the initiation of the programme. This enabled us to start the Global Programme and to help its development in the first set of countries that were keen to join the effort.

Thus, in 1996 we brought together a group of people whom we felt could help in the development and implementation of a programme against stigma.