In my job on Christian Aid’s Oxford team, I am often asked: “Climate Change. Is it really happening? How can you be sure?”

Meeting Christian Aid partners in Bolivia answered that question for me.

Landing in Rurrenabaque, the heat of the Amazon hit us for the first time. Then, at the end of a long, dusty drive, the schoolchildren of the village of Capaina greeted us with joyous smiles.

“Just six months ago, the floods came to our village and the village was submerged. Wenceslao, our corregidor [community leader], swam through the snake-infested water to get help” they told us. “For a long time afterwards, we just didn’t want to play outside. We were still frightened.”

The children also told us how Christian Aid’s local partner, Soluciones Prácticas, had been the first to come to their aid – assessing the situation and getting to action before any other organisation.

Their crops had been devastated, and all food and seed stocks were ruined. So Soluciones Prácticas made sure Capaina had enough food to tide them over until they could grow new crops.

They then sourced quick-growing seeds from another part of the Amazon to replace the lost plants as quickly as possible while preserving the indigenous biodiversity.

The village is being threatened by flooding more frequently as a result of global warming. These floods were the worst in living memory.

I was really moved by the danger the children had faced and their resilience as they prepared for the future.

The floods were so much more devastating than anything we’ve experienced in the UK.

One of their mothers, Mery, described how her house had been completely destroyed and the only possessions she had were the clothes she had been wearing when forced to flee. Her crops, and even her seed stocks, were washed away and there was no insurance at all.

So what can be done?

A few days later, we visited Fundación Solón – an art gallery in La Paz, the administrative capital of Bolivia. Fundación Solón raises awareness of climate change, economic justice and access to water. Through art.

Really? Art?

Walter Solon was a famous mural artist. His legacy lives on: all over the country, as murals are prepared and painted by groups of local people, they are taught through workshops about the issue in the artwork. And that message lives on for years on the walls of the town.

On a more strategic level, Fundación Solón’s director, Elizabeth Peredo, is a powerful voice on the international stage. She recently ran seminars at the People’s Summit on Climate Change during the COP20 climate conference in Peru.

Bolivia is in the frontline of climate change. Flood patterns are intensifying in the Amazon; while glaciers in the Andes Mountains are shrinking rapidly, leading to worries about water shortages.

Christian Aid is helping Bolivians meet that challenge on many levels. Aiding communities like Capaina adapt to the harsh realities of changing weather patterns. Spreading awareness and challenging powerful vested interests on a regional level. Campaigning in the UK and at the UN to bring about global change.

When I spoke to Elizabeth, she was shocked that some people in the UK don’t believe climate change is even happening.

“Go back to Oxford and tell them our story,” she told me, “we’re living with climate change every day”.

And as a regional co-ordinator for Christian Aid, I’m telling my Bolivian stories whenever I can.

Phil Evans