International Humanitarian Award: Niels Peter Rygaard.

Abstract

The International Humanitarian Award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian services and activism by psychologists, including professional and volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations. Award recipients are psychologists who, by their extraordinary service at a difficult time, improve the lives and contribute to the well-being of people in a large or small geographic area anywhere in the world. The 2020 recipient of the APA International Humanitarian Award was selected by the Board of Directors, as recommended by the Committee on International Relations in Psychology (CIRP). The career of Niels Peter Rygaard, child psychologist and CEO of the Fairstart Foundation, is an extraordinary example of humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist. After 20 years of research, supervision, and development of care systems for deprived, abandoned, and adopted children, Rygaard cofounded the Fairstart Foundation, a global organization that works to create local systems of quality child care for abandoned, refugee, and separated children who are living without parental care. Fairstart provides free international caregiver group training in local languages and has trained more than 500 instructors from partner organizations and governments. Through the work developed by Dr. Rygaard and the Fairstart Foundation, national care competencies have been strengthened, over 40,000 children in 26 countries have been helped, and a better future has been secured for all children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).