Downing Street call-up for campaigner Chris

Chris Green, 54, founded the White Ribbon campaign to tackle domestic violence in Britain six years ago.

The charity exists to get men working together to end violence against women.

Chris has been invited to a reception held by Prime Minister David Cameron.

It is being held to mark International Women’s Day on Thursday.

Before that he will go to Turkey to speak at an international conference from tomorrow until Tuesday.

Chris has been invited by the British Council to Istanbul to a three-day conference. Called “Gender Awareness Raising: Case Studies, Tools and Practice” his talk will be about involving men in gender awareness campaigns.

The charity now has up to ten volunteers working on their campaigns.

Chris said: “Ours is a broad propaganda campaign. We don’t work directly with victims of violence, but we have incredible support from the agencies. From our various community groups we get these stories of violence.  It’s surprising how many of your friends and neighbours can be victims.  It beggars belief.

“Of course, there are countless men out there who don’t behave in those ways.  Those are the people we want and need to stand up and give a voice.  And when they do that we’ll see huge cultural shift.

“We can’t prove that what we do achieves anything. How do you prove that you’ve stopped something happening?  But if we talk about it more and more, ultimately we may see the end of violence in the long run.”