Global aid charity brings in climate change specialist
A LEADING communal organisation has created its first post dedicated to the impact of climate change.
Laura Hendy has taken on the role of climate and resilience programmes manager for World Jewish Relief.
The charity is a signatory to the Climate and Environment Charter, reflecting its “commitment to improving the way we support the world’s most vulnerable communities, as well as the carbon footprint of our own organisation”.
WJR campaigns and communications manager Annie Levy said it had become increasingly obvious “that the climate crisis was affecting communities around the world we support — and continues to be one of the biggest humanitarian threats”.
To respond effectively, the charity wanted to “make sure we had technical expertise in-house”.
Ms Hendy brings experience of working for many years on disaster risk management, climate adaptation and poverty reduction with UN agencies and NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region.
A geography graduate from Oxford University, she has a master’s degree in disaster risk management from the University of Lund in Sweden.
Last week, at an EcoSynagogue event in London ahead of the upcoming Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “We have to bear the responsibility individually and collectively for this horrifying situation which threatens our world and which threatens our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.
“All of us together must play our part in guaranteeing that we fulfil our religious obligation to do what we can.”