Wayne Schwass after a distinguished AFL career spanning 14 years with the North Melbourne (winning the 1996 Premiership) and Sydney Swans Football Clubs founded and created the Sunrise Foundation a Not or Profit organisation which delivered mental health programs to more than 5000 secondary school students across Melbourne between 2006 and 2010.

During this time Wayne has also established himself as a respected AFL media identity working across all media platforms including, radio, television, print and internet.

More recently, Wayne successfully transitioned into a sales role as a senior corporate solutions specialist with Telstra Business Centre, Melbourne West between March 2012 and March 2017.

Wayne’s has also become a leading mental health advocate after speaking publicly about his own experiences with mental health conditions in 2006.

This passion and commitment has been the driving force behind the creation of PukaUp, a social enterprise which focuses on mental health, emotional wellbeing and importantly suicide prevention.

PukaUp is committed to educating the Australian community about good mental health, the value of emotional wellbeing and most importantly the critical importance of suicide prevention.

The PukaUp vision is to “create the environments for every person to have authentic and genuine conversations about mental health & emotional wellbeing”.