Tag: CAN Staff

Siddharth Pathak

International Policy Coordinator

Siddharth Pathak has been working as the International Policy Coordinator since July 2013. He has followed the climate negotiations since 2009 and worked within the policy units of organizations like Greenpeace and British High Commission. This has enabled him to understand how government and civil society can help each other in responding to climate change.

He has worked and campaigned on various critical issues, national as well as internationally around climate policy and renewable energy. He has been strongly involved with strategy development and policy advocacy. He has worked with grassroots organizations and understands different perspectives of people especially the synergy between macro and micro level of governance. He regularly contributes to major dailies and publications on climate negotiations and low carbon development pathways.

Siddharth enjoys travelling to quiet and peaceful nature reserves as well as traverse through the mighty Himalayas. He is an amateur birder and photographer when not embroiled in the climate negotiations. Siddharth has a master’s degree in political science focusing on the political economy of decision-making.

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CAN Staff

Geoff Keey

Global Campaign Coordinator

Geoff Keey started with CAN International as its Global Campaign Coordinator in September 2013. He is an environmental campaigner who lives in a tiny village in the mountains of New Zealand’s South Island.

Geoff has worked for conservation and environment NGOs over the last 17 years and most recently was the New Zealand coordinator of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, an alliance of 30 NGOs seeking greater marine protection in the ocean around the Antarctic. Prior to this he was the Greenpeace New Zealand political advisor, where he participated in CAN during the lead up to and aftermath of the Copenhagen UNFCCC negotiations. He has worked on a range of national and international campaigns and has a Masters in Environmental Science.

He is very excited to back with the CAN family and looks forward to supporting the CAN membership as it changes the course of history by averting dangerous levels of climate change.

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CAN Staff

Liga Efeja

Executive Assistant

Liga Efeja joined the team of CAN-International in October 2013. In the past 8 years Liga has worked with grassroots organizations, multiple international NGO networks as well as Latvian governmental agencies, focusing on programme and structural development, NGO management and fundraising. Originally from Latvia, Liga has also lived in France, Germany and Lebanon, and more briefly worked in the USA and Japan.

Once a youth policy and nonformal education activist, Liga moved into the world of environmental campaigning and policy making through working with Lebanon-based organization IndyACT. She is now thrilled to invest her efforts in capacity-building, management and further network development of CAN-International as Executive Assistant. Having additional training in project management, Liga holds a BA in Intercultural Relations and is pursuing an MA degree in Intercultural Conflict Management. She is passionate about transformational activism, advocacy and empowerment for addressing power inequalities.

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CAN Staff

Ashwini Prabha-Leopold

International Communications Coordinator

Ashwini Prabha-Leopold started with CAN in April 2013 and is a Fiji Islander. She has worked for the Fijian Government, United Nations Development Programme and WWF, global conservation organisation. She has worked in developing and developed countries communicating around development, environment and social issues for over 10 years.

Ashwini has substantial experience in press relations and working on campaigns involving various audiences (including grass-root communities, governments and private sector). Her work also expands into corporate communications and strategy development. She started climate communications work with WWF South Pacific and moved to WWF International as Communications Manager on International Climate Policy, especially within the UNFCCC.

Ashwini is a strong advocate for small island countries and believes that every individual (regardless of country) needs to live simply and self-sustainably inorder to harmonise with nature. She hopes to make a small difference through her work as International Communications Coordinator focusing on communications capacity building and low carbon development communications work with CAN Nodes.

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CAN Staff

Ria Voorhaar

Communications Coordinator

Ria Voorhaar joined CAN - International in November 2012 as the Communications Coordinator. With over 10 years experience in journalism and communications, Ria has a strong track record for devising and driving innovative, issues-led campaigns which achieve major media coverage. She has been part of the climate movement since 2008 having worked for Greenpeace and TckTckTck - the Global Campaign for Climate Action. Ria also has a strong online and social media background having previously worked as a member of an Australian television station’s online news team. After that, she helped CHOICE in Australia gain nation-wide media recognition for its important advocacy work.

In 2000, she graduated from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Politics. She is honored to be working for CAN International in order to do what she can to help stop catastrophic climate change. In particular, she is passionate about communicating climate change's disproportionate impact on people in the developing world.

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CAN Staff

Sam Harris

Policy Officer

Sam joined the CAN team in August 2012. She comes to us from Islands First, an NGO that works to build the capacity of Pacific small islands’ UN missions so they are able to fight the battle against climate change more effectively. Sam began with Islands First as an Adviser to the UN Permanent Mission of Nauru and advised the Ambassador and her staff on issues the small nation faces, including climate change, oceans policy, and human rights. She also supported Islands First’s work with AOSIS, when Nauru assumed the chair.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations, a Master’s Degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, and focused primarily on International Climate Change Policy and Small Island States.

Currently, Sam works out of New York, New York.

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CAN Staff

Montana Brockley

Program Coordinator

Montana began with the CAN family in 2008, serving as Program Coordinator for CAN-International. In addition, until recently, Montana split her time between CAN Canada (CAN-Rac), where she was Outreach Coordinator, and CAN-International.

She holds a Bachelor¹s of Science degree, with a focus on plant ecology, from Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Before working with CAN, Montana worked for two years as a research assistant where she studied grassland plant ecology, including plant community responses to predicted climate change models. At this time she was also involved in university and municipal environmental activism and founded a student environmental group.

Currently, Montana works out of British Columbia, Canada.

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CAN Staff

Wael Hmaidan

Director

Wael is the director of CAN – International since April 2012, but has been active in the network since 2008. Wael Hmaidan is a social entrepreneur and founder of IndyACT, an organization that started in Lebanon in 2007 and in less than five years spread all over the Arab World and established presence in Europe and few other regions. Wael has more than 16 years of experience in NGO management and environmental campaigning in a number of NGOs. His work on this issue started in his capacity as the Greenpeace campaigner for the Arab World, where he helped established the energy and marine reserves campaign in the region. Wael’s focus and main issue is climate change. Through the climate campaign which he established in IndyACT, he was able to influence Arab climate policy and raise the priority of the issue among public and governments. Wael has been attending all international climate change negotiations for the past four years, including as one of the lead negotiators for the Lebanese government negotiating team in the UNFCCC. Wael has lived all his life in Lebanon, but considers himself as a global citizen. He obtained an Executive MBA degree from INSEAD, and whenever the opportunity arises, Wael works on strengthening civil society in the Arab region, especially after the Arab spring.

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CAN Staff