Helen Bamber

For over 60 years, Helen Bamber has been at the forefront of assistance for the victims of the Holocaust and torture - working to provide support, counselling, medical treatment and care to those who continue to suffer the trauma and shock of ethnic and social cleansing around the globe.

Helen has been working with people seriously traumatised by life-threatening events since the Second World War. Her work began at the age of 20 when she went to Bergen-Belsen to help rehabilitate the surviving inmates. As a member of the Relief and Rehabilitation Association of the newly established United Nations, she stayed almost two years in Germany. Returning to Britain in 1947, she joined the Committee for the Care of Children from Concentration Camps, a role in which she was responsible for the welfare of the orphans of Auschwitz.

Her subsequent career in the fields of health and social work took her to a variety of hospitals and organisations. In 1961, she joined the newly founded Amnesty International, where she was able to broaden her campaigning on human rights issues. Over the next 20 years, the work of the medical group expanded, with its members, mainly doctors, going abroad to investigate allegations of torture and human rights abuses, and providing medical help for torture victims who had fled to Britain. The specialist treatment required for the physical and psychological damage inflicted on such people led to the realisation that a dedicated service offering long-term care was required.

To meet that need, at the end of 1985, Helen established the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. Since its inception, the Medical Foundation earned a worldwide reputation for its response to the practice of torture and the treatment of its victims. She remained director from 1985 until 2002, when she stepped down to continue to treat her large caseload of severely traumatized people.

In recognition of her work, in 1993 Helen was named European Woman of Achievement. In 1997, she was awarded an OBE and in 1998 she received an Award for a Lifetime’s Achievement in Human Rights. Helen holds Honorary Degrees from Oxford, Dundee, Glasgow, Essex, Ulster, Kingston, The Open University, the American University, London and Brookes University, Oxford. In addition, Helen is on the Advisory Boards of Gaza Community Mental Health Project and the Family Rehabilitation Centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka and she is patron of Women Against Violence (WAVE), Belfast, and of Latin American Mothers, based in London.

Then in April 2005, she established The Helen Bamber Foundation to offer a service of care to survivors of gross human rights violations who fall outside the remit of other organizations but who are suffering physical and psychological injuries that require urgent attention and, in many cases, long-term care. The majority of her clients are asylum-seekers and refugees but her caseload also includes Holocaust survivors, British former Far East Prisoners of War, former hostages, victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland and trafficked women. The Foundation aims to educate the public and influence the decision-makers on all issues regarding gross violations of human rights, torture and atrocities, and their effects on persons who suffer them.

"Let us acknowledge a woman who has tirelessly and lovingly given her great knowledge, time and experience to save hearts, minds and souls for so many selfless years."

Janet Suzman, actress and human rights campaigner

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