Meet Gwen
Gwen Cherne
Gwen Cherne was appointed as the inaugural Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner on the Repatriation Commission on 6 August 2020. On 2 March 2021 she was appointed a member of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission.
Gwen spent three years in and out of Afghanistan doing stabilisation and reconstruction work, she is the partner, mother, widow, daughter, granddaughter, niece, and cousin of veterans. She has lived experience of military family life, mental health issues and recovery, family and domestic violence and intimate partner violence. She is dedicated to promoting hope and healing through co-designed and co-implemented solutions for local communities from a federal perspective.
Since the death of her husband to suicide in 2017 she has dedicated herself to advocacy for Australian war widows, defence and veterans’ families, suicide prevention and mental health awareness, and family and domestic violence.
Gwen was appointed to the Council of the Australian War Memorial in 2019, was an inaugural Member of the Council for Women and Families United by Defence Service, served on the board of the Australian War Widow’ NSW chapter, was an Ambassador for the Commando Welfare Trust and Gotcha4Life and was a 2018 Invictus Games Ambassador for Clubs NSW.
She was named an Ambassador for Invictus Australia in October 2021.
Gwen’s expertise is in working with local communities and ensuring their voices are heard and understood at the federal level to affect real, tangible change. She has successfully advocated for systemic change of support structures for families in her local community and beyond.
Born in the United States, her career has taken her all around the world, including the US, Australia, Afghanistan, Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, with a focus on stability, relief, and development for youth, women, and families living in crisis and extreme poverty.
In her early career she co-founded a school for low-income children in Brooklyn, NY and a sister school in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the Bronx. She worked in Afghanistan off and on for three years as an international development worker in the Central and South Regions and as Regional Director in Jalalabad and Kabul on a wide variety of stabilization, reconstruction, training, community development and engineering projects. After returning to the US Gwen worked as a Senior Trainer and Manager for Curriculum and Training for military, Foreign Service Officers and other government officials preparing for deployment.
After arriving in Australia in 2011, she spent seven years working at the Australian Civil-Military Centre as a Program Manager and Assistant Director for Research, during which time she produced the film “Leading Together”, used by Australian government agencies working in international conflicts and relief efforts.
Gwen has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Studies from Boston College, and holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with a concentration in International Policy from the New York University Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.
Gwen became an Australian citizen in 2015 and has three children. She is a published writer, international motivational speaker, and a mentor to young professionals.