Dwayne Fields
Co-founder of the Foundation and Trustee
At age six, Dwayne came to North London from Jamaica. All the freedom he enjoyed on his tropical island seemed to vanish overnight. He had to adapt, and in adapting, he gave up on the outdoors. He became depressed and mixed up in the wrong crowd… gangs. Fast forward to his early twenties, one incident in Hackney changed his life. Forever. A gun was pointed at him, he was shot at - at point-blank range. It misfired. Twice! He has also been a victim of gang knife crime when he was stabbed in the chest and stomach.
Dwayne decided that he wanted to do something that could inspire inner-city kids, showing them that this is NOT the path they need to follow.
In 2010, as a protest to gang violence and a slap in the face of stereotypes, Dwayne walked to the Magnetic North Pole, becoming the first black Briton to achieve this feat, later that year he was also named Choice FM's Role Model of the Year. On his return he was invited to Buckingham Palace at a reception to mark the centenary of Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in the presence of the HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
Since then he has dedicated his life to helping urban youth by focusing on outdoor activities, such as walking and climbing. In 2018 he led a group of inner-city London youths on a series of challenges which culminated in them climbing Ben Nevis - known as Street to Peak. As a result Dwayne has been awarded the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ by its Lord Mayor. Dwayne is a dedicated Ambassador for the Scout Association, the National Trust the Woodland Trust and Ordnance Survey.
Phoebe Smith
Co-founder of the Foundation; Chair and Trustee
Phoebe grew up in an area affectionately known by the National Press as 'Costa Del Dole', where she was constantly told she couldn't and shouldn't aspire to ever leave and pursue a life of adventure. With no female role models in the media to inspire, she thought the outdoors was not a welcoming place. But then after working in pubs and saving all her money she embarked on a trip to Australia that would change her life. She discovered a free and easy way to explore the natural world - wild camping.
Since then she's become a self-confessed extreme sleeping addict, eschewing her bed to sleep wild whenever she can - from caves to mountain tops, disused farmsteads and under giant boulders – if it's in a wild place she wants to take her sleeping bag and experience a wild night out. She has since seen her love of wilderness take her on solo adventures all around the world – from Everest Base Camp in Nepal, to portaledging in trees in the Bavarian Alps and bedding down inside glaciers in Svalbard – the last stop before the North Pole.
In 2014 she became the first person to camp at all the extreme points of mainland Britain, solo, on consecutive nights. Wanting to use her passion for sleeping wild to change the lives of those who don't get the choice, in 2017 she gave up her Christmas to raise money for Centrepoint (the young people's homeless charity), by Sleeping the 3 Peaks and raising over £8k. In 2018 she completed a 10-night Extreme Sleep Out where she slept dangling from 10 UK landmarks for charity, raising a further £20k and for Christmas 2018 she raised over £16k by walking from Sunderland to Cumbria, solo, sleeping rough and dressed as Wander Woman in her self-devised Hadrian Hundred for Homeless.
Phoebe has proudly been an Ordnance Survey #GetOutside Champion since 2016 in recognition of her work encouraging everyone to enjoy the great outdoors and coining the hashtag on social media. She is ambassador for the annual Big Canopy Campout (which helps raise funds for the World Land Trust), as well as Wild Night Out - the UK's national night of adventure. She is also president of the Long Distance Walkers Association.
It’s her on-going mission to prove that you don’t need to be a beard-sporting, rufty-tufty, I’ll-eat-a-dead-sheep-carcass type to have an adventure!
An award-winning travel writer - current Sustainability Writer of the Year (Travel Media Awards), author (Extreme Sleeps, Wilderness Weekends et al), photographer, host of the Wander Woman Travel Podcast and broadcaster, Phoebe will be helping to document Team #WeTwo's trip to share with the world.