Helen Bamber
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Helen Bamber, OBE (born 1 May 1925), is a psychotherapist who in 2005 founded the Helen Bamber Foundation[1]. to help survivors of gross human rights violations.
[edit] Biography
Helen Bamber studied psychotherapy at Essex University. At the age of twenty, she was appointed to one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She remained in Germany for two and a half years, negotiating the evacuation to Switzerland of a group of young survivors suffering from tuberculosis.
In 1947 Bamber returned to England and was appointed to the Committee for the Care of Young Children from Concentration Camps. During the next eight years she trained to work with disturbed young adults and children while in close liaison with the Anna Freud Clinic. During this time she also undertook a part-time study in Social Science at the London School of Economics.
In 1958 she was appointed Almoner at St. George in the East End Hospital and later at the Middlesex Hospital. Following her work with children, Bamber became one of the founding members of the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital[2]. The organization established in Britain the practice of allowing a mother to remain with her young child.
In 1961, shortly after its inception, Bamber joined Amnesty International and became chairman of the first British group. In 1974 she helped establish and was appointed secretary of the Medical Group within the organization. In recognition of the Medical Group's work within Amnesty International, the British Medical Association established a Working Party on Torture.
As the Medical Group dealt often with people whose injuries needed specialist physical and psychological help, Bamber set up the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture in 1985 to provide long-term care to patients. She continued as director until 2002 when she stepped down to concentrate on her work with patients. In April 2005 she established the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support to people who had suffered human rights violations.
In recognition of her work, Bamber was appointed European Woman of Achievement in 1993. She was awarded an OBE and an Award for a Lifetime's Achievement in Human Rights in 1998. She holds honorary degree status from Oxford University, the University of Dundee, Glasgow University, the University of Ulster, Kingston University, The Open University and Oxford Brookes University.
In 2006 Bamber received the prestigious Beacon Fellowship Prize for her dedication to the care and counselling of holocaust survivors and victims of torture.
