Dr. Mariwan Baker Founder and Chairperson

Dr. Mariwan Baker, Chairman and Founder of Bring Hope Humanitarian Foundation (BHHF), has been involved in various humanitarian efforts since the late 1990s. He holds a PhD from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Copenhagen, and holds two Master’s Degrees from Sweden, in Physics and Radiation Oncology.

Dr. Baker was born in Northern Iraq in 1973 at the height of the oil crisis. As a result of the Kuwait war, he became a Kurdish refugee, trapped in the mountain area between Iraq and Iran. At age 19, following his struggle for survival, he managed to migrate to Sweden. He remained a refugee in limbo for three years, living in eight different refugee camps outside of the city of Stockholm.

In 1995, Dr. Baker was given asylum and permanent residency by the Swedish Government. Seeking higher education, Dr. Baker studied during the day and worked at night, and in 2001 he received a Master of Science Degree in a joint collaboration between the University of Florida and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). In 2004, he received a second MSc from Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University. He obtained his PhD in 2016.

Dr. Baker’s life experiences had a profound impact on him personally.

Seeking to inspire change and improve the lives of others, he started Bring Hope Humanitarian Foundation -- a culmination of work that he started as early as 1999 when he became more established in Sweden and improved his economic situation. As a direct witness and survivor of the 8-year Iran-Iraq war, the chemical attack on Halabja, the Kuwait war and massive Kurdish exodus during the first Gulf War, Dr. Baker sought to always provide assistance to others in need.

Vowing to help those struggling, Dr. Baker did all he could to come to the aid of people who were in desperate need, in one way or another. He aims to help not just the social victims of poverty, but the ill and infirm -- especially vulnerable children and women, those with cancer or students whose schooling was in jeopardy for lack of funding.

In 2015, Dr. Baker abandoned a decade-long clinical career in treating cancer patients in Scandinavia, and dedicated his full-time work to helping the less fortunate worldwide through his founding of Bring Hope Humanitarian Foundation.