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Contact us
For more information, or if you would like to receive our monthly newsletter,
please contact us on info@challengetochange.org, or telephone 01227-794897.
Our mailing address is: Hatters Croft, Radfall Ride, Whitstable, Kent, CT5 3EW.
Opposite is a photograph of ‘the Street’ which is a natural bank of sand and shingle at right angles to the coast at Tankerton near Whitstable. Visible at low tide and stretching out for about half a mile, the Street is submerged twice each day as the tide comes in. An artist, Nick Crowe, recently created a sculpture of the islands of Tuvalu, and attached them to the seabed on the Street. Twice per day, the sculpture dramatically disappeared as the tide rose. It symbolised the fate of the real islands of Tuvalu in the South Pacific, which will probably be the first landmass to be submerged by rising seas as a result of climate change. The sculpture was significant for the small town of Whitstable, which is itself built on a flood plain. |
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Graham Adutt, director@challengetochange.org, the Director of Challenge to Change, is a development manager who sees climate change as the result of humankind’s historic failure to solve global inequality combined with the failure to sustainably manage global natural resources. Graham has managed international charity work in Asia and Africa since 1991, with Caritas, CIDSE, the International Rescue Committee, the American Refugee Committee, and International Social Service. He is now convinced that charitable relief and development work must be complemented by advocacy – challenging government authorities and private enterprises to recognise their roles in the causes of poverty and natural disaster, and persuading them to change. “Only then can our charitable work be successful in the longer term” says Graham. "Otherwise our help is really a drop in the ocean and might not last into the next generation. Governments must protect people from the environmental consequences of the economic system - or they must change the system" he says. Graham’s interest in development work began when he worked in southern and eastern Turkey in the mid-1980s. In 1990 he studied Development Studies at Leeds, and began campaigning against climate change in 2007.
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| Dang Thu Phuong, climate@challengetochange.org, the Climate Programme Coordinator of Challenge to Change, is a highly-regarded community development specialist and a committed anti-poverty campaigner, from Vietnam. She gained outstanding academic qualifications from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand in 2001 for her work in Rural Development Planning and in Gender. She has worked with international and Vietnamese charities, and also with the Embassy of Finland in Hanoi, Vietnam, in the fields of community development, environment, grassroots democracy and human rights. In 2007 Phuong's concern for the victims of climate change led her to join Challenge to Change, and now she takes every opportunity to find assistance for them. "In Britain many people share my concern about the effects of climate change, which makes me glad" she says. "Still I'm surprised that some people have doubts. Climate change is already a reality for many poor households in Vietnam." Phuong travels regularly between Vietnam and the UK, to link practical assistance among Vietnamese communities with development education work in the UK. |
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 Phuong (second from left) in Trieu Phong District of Quang Tri Province. The livelihood of this household is increasingly threatened by landslides and soil erosion.
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| The Vietnam Team of Challenge to Change, vietnam@challengetochange.org, is comprised of Mrs Nguyen Phuc Hoa - Representative, Mr Dang Ngoc Dien - Programme Coordinator, and Ms Nguyen Thi Bao Thu - Programme Administrator. The Vietnam Field Office is located in the capital of Vietnam's central region, at: 10/4, Le Hong Phong Street, Phu Nhuan Ward, Hue City. This region has long been impacted by natural disasters, and the team is highly experienced in community-based disaster risk management. But climate change is exacerbating the risks, and leading to new hazards which poor communities had not experienced before. "Floods and typhoons are already common here, and local people can cope" says Mrs Phuc Hoa. "But environmental hazards are getting more dangerous and more unpredictable. We need to improve planning processes to take account of this. Government sectors, working together, can take account of the voices of local communities and also the future climate scenarios from the latest climate science". Pictured here from left to right: Mr Dien, Mrs Hoa, Ms Phuong (also above), Ms Thu, and Mr Duat, Associate of Challenge to Change on the ACCCRN Project. |
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The Trustees of Challenge to Change, who bring an extensive range of skills and experience
to
the oversight of the organisation, are:
Upper Row:
Mr Stephen Boyle (Chair), Whitstable, England
Dr Sheelagh O’Reilly, Argyll & Bute, Scotland
Dr Alan Taylor, Cambridge, England
Lower Row:
Mr Koos Neefjes, Hanoi, Vietnam
Ms Hoang Hoa Anh, Sydney, Australia |
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