Bob Walley

Bob has managed research and aid projects exploring the effects of climate change on communities in Nepal, Indonesia, Mongolia (as part of The Big Steppe Expedition) and other areas of the Asia Pacific. Due to this experience Bob is part of UCLan’s Institute for the Study of the Asia Pacific (ISAP) and Co-Chair of the Centre for Austronesian Studies (COAST). He has worked with many international organisations on projects including the UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, Save the Children and the Red Cross.

For the Welcome project he took UCLan students to Greece and Italy to run leadership training with unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, as part of a wider integration and empowerment project working with asylum seekers, refugees and displaced people. He has years of experience working with vulnerable or disadvantaged groups across the world. Examples include as a project coordinator with Pallium based in Thiruvananthapuram, India. Here he managed projects to raise awareness of inequality and disabilities across India, advocated for policy changes regarding sustainability presenting SMART city objectives to the Indian Government and trained Indian volunteers, doctors and nurses in community leadership. He has also previously worked on the Agadir Orphanage Empowerment Project in Morocco, as a campaign artist for Greenpeace Indonesia and Flood Aid Rapid Response Volunteer evacuating people from communities in the worst affected areas of Jakarta. Many other examples of projects can be seen on Bob’s Youtube channel.

In the UK, Bob is the co-founder and a cooperative member of Envirolution (envirolution.org.uk) which runs events and workshops across the country which engages up to 6000 people at each event from the local community providing positive response options to the climate emergency.

Bob studied Illustration and visual arts at UCLan and then Falmouth University and uses creative arts as a valuable method of engaging audiences and demographics about challenging subjects such as the climate emergency, social justice or mental and physical health and wellbeing. He has curated exhibitions at venues across the world and has delivered workshops and presentations at over 30 conferences in the UK and globally, including the International UN Climate Change Conferences COP15 in Copenhagen, COP21 in Paris and COP26 in Glasgow. Most recently presenting about Manchester’s first Community Assembly on Climate Change for which he was the project lead. He now supports and initiates similar climate assembly projects across the country.