Convening: Coping With Climate Change
This West Foundation Community Convening features a moderated panel discussion among speakers regarding their organizational strategies to cope with the impact of climate change on health, livelihoods and education. The discussion is followed by an open Q/A session. Featuring Katarina Kahlmann, Chief Program Officer of TechnoServe, Sarah Shannon, Executive Director of Hesperian Health Guides and Laura DeDominicis, Executive Director of Nurturing Minds.
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Featured Speakers
Katarina Kahlmann, Chief Program Officer, TechnoServe
As Chief Program Officer, Katarina Kahlmann leads the operation of TechnoServe’s offices around the world.
Prior to her appointment as Chief Program Officer, Katarina held several positions within TechnoServe. She was most recently Regional Director of West Africa, after serving as a Director on the Strategic Initiatives team where she worked on developing and strengthening the organization’s corporate partnerships in diverse sectors across Africa, India and Latin America. Katarina also served as TechnoServe’s Country Director in Haiti, where she supported the growth of the operation and diversified the portfolio across mango, entrepreneurship and peanut sectors. Katarina began her career at TechnoServe as a Volunteer Consultant in Haiti in 2010, leading the diagnostic phase of the Haiti Hope Project.
Prior to TechnoServe, Katarina was a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company working to help various organizations develop strategies for growth and organizational change. She has also served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program.
Katarina completed a Master of Science in International Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics with a focus on Development Economics.
“With a growing population and scarce natural resources, humanity is in need of more efficient agricultural supply chains. Improved productivity and market access among the world’s roughly 500 million smallholder farmers can help nourish future generations and bring income, nutrition and education to millions of poor households. Ever since I joined TechnoServe, I have had the fortune of working with tens of thousands of female and male farmers and entrepreneurs to help them make a better living.”
Sarah Shannon, Executive Director, Hesperian Health Guides
Sarah Shannon is Executive Director of Hesperian Health Guides. Best known for the widely translated Where There Is No Doctor, Hesperian produces a range of health materials in multiple formats. Their Community Guide to Environmental Health, available in over 30 languages, provides tools for community-level actions promoting human and planetary health.
Sarah’s focus at Hesperian has been on reaching and empowering the most marginalized communities—engaging grassroots partners in the development of new health materials to address new health challenges, and expanding access to these resources.
Before joining Hesperian, Sarah spent 14 years in Central America, training hundreds of community health workers in Honduras and El Salvador. Her honors include the CORE Group’s “Dory Storms Child Survival Recognition Award,” and UCLA’s “Ruth Roemer Social Justice Leadership Award.”
Laura DeDominicis, Executive Director, Nurturing Minds, Inc.
Laura is the Executive Director of Nurturing Minds, an organization dedicated to supporting quality education, life skills, and entrepreneurship to help at-risk girls in Tanzania become leaders in their communities. Prior to this role she served as a founding board member and chair of the board of Nurturing Minds. She is dedicated to creating a financially sustainable institution with a diverse funding platform, in-country income-generating businesses and an endowment entitled, “Putting the Future in Her Hands”.
Laura has an extensive 30-year background in poverty alleviation working with both start-ups and long-established organizations that improve livelihoods in the developing world and in the U.S. on issues including homelessness, wildlife conversation and girls’ education. Previously, Laura founded Kiwanja Imports in the United States to import hand-made, fair trade, crafts and household décor produced by women’s groups in Africa, India and Mexico. She also helped to establish the non-profit Dance for the Earth, an organization that utilized dance and performance art to support the cultural and environmental preservation of indigenous communities globally.
Most recently Laura helped launch Amplify Girls, A collective of community-driven organizations working to localize global development and invest in adolescent girls. Laura has a Masters’ degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.