Our Work
We support people working for environmental and social change through three connected areas: defender support, leadership and community resilience, and public engagement.
Climate and the environment are our priorities. We also work across other social issues, recognizing that the challenges communities face are often connected.
Defender Support & Response
People working for environmental and social change can face threats, detention, legal pressure, and disruption to their lives and organizations. Their families and colleagues often have to navigate these situations with little guidance or support.
ECHO is developing a Defender Support & Response Initiative to help connect people facing serious pressure with trusted expertise, practical assistance, and solidarity. Building on the earlier FreeThemAll effort, the initiative will focus on understanding each situation and coordinating support with people affected and partners they trust.
Our approach recognizes that public visibility can help in some situations, while others call for quieter support. The needs and wishes of those affected guide the response.
Hong Hoang sharing her experience and lessons at the “Hold the Line: Stories of Environmental Defenders in Asia Pacific” event in 2025
Leadership & Community Resilience
Local leaders need opportunities to learn, trusted peers to turn to, and space to work through difficult decisions. These connections matter especially when resources are limited or the work comes under pressure.
Through training, mentorship, and peer learning, ECHO helps leaders and community groups strengthen their skills, share experience, and build supportive networks. Areas of focus include community organizing, communication, risk awareness, and personal and collective wellbeing.
We draw on participants’ own knowledge and experience, helping them find approaches that fit their communities and sustain their work over time.
Hong Hoang leading a climate leadership workshop for young leaders in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, 2018
Public Engagement & Campaigns
Public understanding and participation are essential to climate action and social change. Yet the voices of communities closest to these issues are often missing from the wider conversation.
Through storytelling, public education, and collaborative campaigns, ECHO helps bring these perspectives to broader audiences. Our focus includes climate and environmental justice, alongside connected social issues.
We work with communities, communicators, and partners to make complex issues accessible and create meaningful ways for people to take part. People sharing their stories should have a say in how those stories are told and used.
A mural highlighting air pollution, part of CHANGE’s 2017 campaign against fossil fuels in Vietnam.