The BEARR Trust’s Autumn Lecture 2023: “War in Ukraine and mental health: the long-term consequences”
The BEARR Trust is very grateful to Professor Robert van Voren for giving our autumn lecture online on 13 September 2023.
Find a recording of the talk on our YouTube channel here.
The theme of his online lecture was: “War in Ukraine and mental health: the long-term consequences” – a topic of crucial importance at this time, and one that the BEARR Trust’s grants have been addressing this year.
Many participants have described the talk as brilliant and we had a lively discussion after it. As usual, the event was a fundraiser and the proceeds will be shared between the BEARR Trust and the Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP foundation. Tickets were free but we invited all who were able to make a donation to support our respective important work.
The event was recorded and the recording and a report will be available soon on this website.
Thank you to all who joined us and especially for all the generous donations
For Ukrainian click here.
A written report of the event will be available on this page soon.
About Robert van Voren
Robert van Voren is Chief Executive of the international foundation ‘Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP’, an international foundation for mental health reform. He is also Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development, and Professor at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, and at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is also a Patron of The BEARR Trust.
In the 1980s Robert coordinated international campaigns against the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and became head of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry in 1986. The organisation successfully campaigned to have the Soviet Union removed from the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) in 1983 and to have conditions placed on its return to the WPA in 1989.
Starting in 1990-1991, Van Voren and his foundation developed an extensive programme to support mental health reformers in the former USSR to humanise mental health care. The organisation gradually developed into what is now the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry, with member organisations in Bulgaria, Georgia, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, The Netherlands and the United States. It has implemented many hundreds of projects in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas and is particularly active in countries such as Ukraine, where it provides a wide range of support efforts to counter the psychological consequences of war.
Robert van Voren was elected Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1997, became an Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association in 2004 and was knighted by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands in 2005 for his work as a human rights activist. In 2003 he was granted Lithuanian citizenship in recognition of his contribution to the development of an independent Lithuania.
