Jane Tewson

Tewson works on some inner city Melbourne projects, and elsewhere, through Igniting Change (formerly Pilotlight Australia). The book Change the World for Ten Bucks was published and German and British editions have also been released. The Dying to Know project and book (2009) is about coming to terms with death, and negotiating grief.

In 2000, Tewson moved to Melbourne, Australia, when her husband, Charles Lane, became CEO of the Myer Foundation, a philanthropic organization and then the Dept. of Victorian Communities. At the time she was suffering from ovarian cancer but survived after operations in Melbourne.

Tewson had worked in a refugee camp in Sudan in 1985, where she was pronounced clinically dead after contracting cerebral malaria. She recounts the sensation of looking down on her own body and but then returning to it and surviving – there were no drugs left in the camp. Her response to the African famine, Comic Relief was launched on Christmas Day 1985 from the refugee camp in Safawa, Sudan. By 2005 Comic Relief had raised £337 million for famine relief and community development, notably for Africa and disadvantaged areas of the UK.

In 1981, aged 23, Tewson founded Charity Projects in London, with funding from Lord (Tim) Bell and numerous other donations. Its initial focus was tackling homelessness in Soho.

Jane Tewson CBE (born 9 January 1958) is a British charity worker and the originator of several charitable organisations and ideas for community strengthening in the UK and Australia.