THE SHORTLIST:

Winner:
Shami Chakrabarti CBE
Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Marion Janner

The 2007 Campaigning & Public Life winner is: Shami Chakrabarti

From the abolition of slavery to the fight against poverty, from volunteering within your community to winning Britain the Olympic Games, Britons have, for centuries, worked tirelessly to progress civilisation. These contributions are abundant and represent an important part of Britain's strong sense of national pride. This award is for the countless individuals who work with steadfast determination on particular community issues or fight to correct social wrongs.

This was previously two separate categories: Campaigning and Public Life. Due to continued crossover between the categories, we have decided this year to combine them into one.

Shami Chakrabarti CBE - Winner

Since 2003 Shami has been Director of Liberty, a British pressure group, which aims to protect civil liberties. Liberty; a cross party, non-party membership organisation is at the heart of the movement for fundamental rights and freedoms in England and Wales. After graduating from the London School of Economics, she worked as a barrister at the Home Office, before joining Liberty in 2001. She spent the following two years campaigning against the anti-terrorist measures which followed September 11th and is a prominent opponent of recent counter-terrorism legislation, in particular the 90 day detention period and ID card proposals. This year she received an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of East Anglia and was awarded a CBE.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes -

An adventurer, former serviceman in the army and holder of several endurance records. He was the first man to go from the North to the South Pole (covering 52,000 miles in the process), using surface transport alone and the first man to completely cross the Antarctic by foot. Consequently he was deservedly awarded the prestigious Polar medal. In 2003, despite having undergone a double heart bypass operation just four months before, Fiennes carried out the extraordinary feat of completing seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, raising thousands of pounds for the British Heart Foundation. In March 2007, despite a morbid, lifelong fear of heights, he undertook a personal challenge to climb the Eiger by its much-feared 6000 ft North Face. He raised £1.5 million in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer Care Delivering Choice Programme, which aims to provide greater choice for patients in end of life care. 

Marion Janner -

Marion set up the Star Wards project last year after recovering from treatment as a detained inpatient on a locked psychiatric ward. The project works with mental health trusts to improve inpatients’ daily experiences and treatment outcomes by promoting its 75 easy to implement ideas for service improvement. Star Wards inspires and shares best practice in therapeutic engagement of patients, to make best use of their time and skills and those of staff. Its vision is wards where talking therapies play as substantial a role as medication, patients are supported in management of symptoms and treatment, there is a strong culture of patient mutual support, patients benefit from a full programme of daily activities and patients retain and build on community ties.

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