Stephen John Chalke (born 17 November 1955) is a British Baptist minister, the founder of the Oasis Charitable Trust, a former United Nations' Special Adviser on Human Trafficking, and a social activist.
Chalke is the author of a large number of books and articles as well as a former presenter and now regular contributor and commentator on television, radio and other media.
Early life and career Chalke was born in Croydon, South London, in 1955. As a teenager he became a Christian and decided to dedicate his life working to end poverty. He graduated from Spurgeon's College in South Norwood, was ordained a Baptist minister in 1981, and served as a local minister for four years. In 1985 he founded the Oasis Trust to set up housing, healthcare and educational projects.
Oasis has since developed into a group of charities that currently operate in nine countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa, providing housing, education, healthcare, training, youth work, and family support. It has grown into a significant voluntary sector provider, delivering services for local authorities and national governments as well as self-funded initiatives. In the UK, Oasis' family of charities now includes Oasis Community Learning, Oasis Community Housing, Oasis Community Partnerships and Stop the Traffik as well as a growing network of Oasis churches. In the United Kingdom alone, Oasis now employs over 5,000 staff as well as working with thousands more volunteers.
Church leader Chalke was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1981, after studying at Spurgeon's College in London. He was minister of Tonbridge Baptist Church in Kent for four years before setting up the Oasis Trust. He later formed a developing network of community churches around the UK which began with the foundation of Oasis Church Waterloo, London SE1, in 2003 and now includes churches in Salford, Bath, Hull and Reading as well as a growing number of other locations. Chalke served as founding minister of Oasis Church Waterloo from 2003 to 2023, in the London Borough of Lambeth where Oasis currently also serves its local community through the delivery of a children's centre, a primary school, a secondary school, various adult education opportunities, a foodbank, a drop-in debt advice centre, a community farm, the local public library, a range of youth work schemes and a breadth of other community building programmes.
Housing In the late 1980s Chalke set up Oasis' first housing project, developed to accommodate homeless young people living in South London and to support them on their journey to independent housing. In the late 1990s Chalke began working with a group of churches in his home town of Croydon, as well as in partnership with Croydon Council to establish the Croydon Foyer. The foyer, which opened in 2000, was accredited through the Foyer Federation, provided housing and training for homeless people aged 18 to 25.
Although the Croydon Foyer has now closed, the provision of housing for vulnerable people has continued to be a priority for Chalke and Oasis. As a result, in April 2014 Oasis Housing formally merged with another homelessness charity known as Aquila Way to become what is now known as Oasis Community Housing, one of the Oasis UK subsidiary charities. It now supports around 1,200 vulnerable young people into housing each year as well as providing a range of other services.
Educator From its early days Oasis has been involved in the provision of education not only in the UK but also in Asia and Africa.
In the UK early in the 1990s, Oasis also began to develop professional training for youth workers. By 2009, this had grown into a range of academically and professionally validated short courses, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study in children's work, youth work and family practice and the Oasis College for Higher Education was established in central London.
In 2004 Chalke set up Oasis Community Learning as part of the Oasis Group of charities in order to deliver secondary education through the UK Government's Academies programme. The first three Oasis academies, at Enfield Lock, Grimsby and Immingham, opened in September 2007. Oasis’ involvement with secondary education has since grown and, from 2011, it also began to develop a focus on primary education. Today Oasis is responsible for 54 primary, secondary or all-through academies across England.
In 2022, the UK government appointed Oasis, the Harris Federation, Star Academies, and Outwood Grange Academies Trust to develop the National Institute of Teaching. The Department for Education stated that the Institute was founded by four school trusts with a history of assisting teachers and leaders in their career development and working with children in local communities. Its purpose is to influence the quality of teaching and school leadership by conducting research, applying results to professional development programs, and sharing findings with the education sector.
Health care In September 1993, an earthquake devastated the Latur district in Maharashtra, India. Chalke, who was working as a presenter for GMTV (Good Morning Television), suggested to Peter McHugh, the Director of Programmes, that the station should run an appeal to build a hospital as a response to the crisis.
McHugh agreed, and commissioned Chalke to travel to India to make a series of inserts to be played into a week's special programming to raise the funds to build the hospital. Over £1m was donated: in 1996, the GM Priya Hospital, built by Oasis, opened in Dapegaon, one of the villages affected by the earthquake. It was named after the TV station and a young girl, Priya, who survived the earthquake. Priya had been buried for five days underneath rubble but was protected by her iron cot.
Chalke, who was only just beginning the work of Oasis in India, suggested that the completed hospital be given to the Emmanuel Hospital Association. The Association was already running a series of hospitals in the north of the country and Chalke believed it had the capacity and infrastructure to sustain the work that Oasis and GMTV had begun. The GM Priya hospital has subsequently grown and now specialises in AIDS and Cancer Care as well as neurological diseases and chronic illnesses.
Although Oasis has not built another hospital, it is now engaged in a variety of health care initiatives both in the UK and beyond.
In 2010 Oasis Youth Support, a youth violence intervention service, embedded into St Thomas’ Emergency Department, was set up under Chalke's leadership in partnership with senior hospital staff. OYS addresses the underlying issues surrounding the presentation of young people at the ED with violence-related injuries. It is designed to address psychosocial and environmental factors associated with the young people's attendance due to violence. The service provides a unique opportunity to engage vulnerable young people at a critical moment for change, often those who would not otherwise come to the attention of statutory services. It serves two London boroughs – Lambeth and Southwark – which have high levels of deprivation. It aims to reduce the number of young people returning to the Emergency Department as a result of violence, and to increase the ED's contribution towards a public health approach to violence in these areas.
In recent years Chalke's involvement in grassroots healthcare has naturally grown out of the wider work of community development Oasis is now doing in local communities around the UK and beyond. Following the 70th anniversary of the NHS in July 2018 he was asked to deliver a speech to senior NHS staff on the way forward in the development of community health and wellbeing, where he stated his view that, "Our problem is that we have medicalised health care, focusing our thinking, energy and funding too narrowly. What we call the National Health Service would be better labelled a National Sickness Service. It’s time to think differently and invest in the other pillars on which real health and wellbeing are built. Health is 3D – it is about body, mind and spirit. The NHS cannot solve the health problems of the UK alone. It is time to think more radically." Oasis has subsequently launched Oasis Community Health as a new element of its work in partnership with Guy's and St.Thomas’ Charitable Trust and Frimley Park NHS Trust.
Broadcaster Chalke has been a regular broadcaster for over 30 years. He hosted various shows for ITV during the 1990s as well as being part of their GMTV morning breakfast show team from 1993 to 1999. He also presented BBC1's Songs of Praise during that period, as well as hosting a regular show on BBC Radio 4 about community development, Changing Places. He currently contributes across the media as a social, religious and political commentator as well as being a regular presenter of Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2 and 'Prayer For The Day' on BBC Radio 4.
Guinness World Record holder In 2005 Chalke became the holder of the Guinness World Record for the largest amount of sponsorship money ever raised by an individual through a single event. He broke this record by raising £1.25 million for Oasis' work with schools in disadvantaged communities, through running the London Marathon. His record was beaten at the following year's marathon by Sir Steve Redgrave who raised over £1.785 million. In April 2007 Chalke recaptured the title as well as becoming the fastest money-generating sports person in history, by raising over £1.855 million in 3 hours 58 minutes 40 seconds. When he crossed the finishing line at the 2011 London Marathon, after 4 hours 31 minutes, Chalke broke this record for a third time by raising £2.32 million.
Views and activism
Faithworks In 2001 Chalke founded The Faithworks Movement, along with a companion magazine, to raise awareness of the role the Church can play within local communities. Faithworks's resources support churches of all denominations across the UK.www.churchtimes.co.uk Chalke has become a spokesman for the church in the national debate about the provision of public services by faith-based groups.http://www.rhul.ac.uk/services/volunteering/volunteeringawards2007.html www.rhul.ac.uk Over 20,000 members—including individuals, churches and other not-for-profit organizations—count themselves as part of the Faithworks movement.
Stop the Traffik In 2005 Chalke set up Stop the Traffik, a global coalition which works to raise awareness of human trafficking in all countries and communities and to stop the buying and selling of people.
In 2008 he was appointed Special Advisor on Community Action to the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT),UN.GIFT a joint initiative of six UN bodies — the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UNICEF, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). following the coalition's delivery of 1.5 million signatures in support of a global declaration against human trafficking at a UN conference in Vienna in February of that year. He held this position until 2015.
Initially STOP THE TRAFFIK was set up as a two-year campaign to coincide with the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807. The campaign intended to:
Educate: create awareness and understanding of people trafficking. Advocate: engage with those who have the power to minimise the trafficking of people. Fundraise: Financing anti-trafficking work around the world working with those vulnerable to and those who have been trafficked.
March 2009 saw the publication of Stop The Traffick: People should not be Bought and Sold, co-authored by Chalke and Cherie Blair, which looks worldwide at the issue and responses to it.