Camila Batmanghelidjh

Camila Batmanghelidjh is the founder and chief executive of Kids Company, a charity that works with disadvantaged children and young people in inner-city London.

With a psychotherapy degree from Regents College, and child and infant observation training from Tavistock Clinic, Batmanghelidjh set up her first charity, called Place2be, to address children’s emotional wellbeing in schools. It is now a national project and has served more than 40,000 youngsters.

After this proved successful, she went on to set up Kids Company in 1996. Many of the 13,500 children reached by Kids Company’s services have experienced severe and multiple trauma. The charity operates through a street-level drop-in centre, a post-16 educational institution and a therapy centre in South London, as well as a newly opened street level centre in Camden, North London. It also offers therapeutic and social work services in over 30 schools.

The Iranian-born Batmanghelidjh, who has no children of her own and says she was destined to spend her live helping others’ children, won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2005. She was nominated in The Good List 2006, a list of exceptional people, and was awarded the Woman of the Year award in 2006. In 2008 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Open University. She has written Shattered Lives: Children Who Live with Courage and Dignity and other papers.

Is this profile up-to-date? If not, please let us know at whoswho@civilsociety.co.uk