Laetania Belai Djandam, Climate Officer, Health Care Without Harm.
Belai is a 22-year-old Indigenous environmental activist descending from the Dayak Tribe of Borneo Island, Indonesia. She is a Climate Officer at Health Care Without Harm Asia as well as a recent Medical Sciences graduate from the University of Sheffield. She grew up surrounded by traditional wisdom that calls for the protection of both ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, which has translated into years of activism across local, national, and international platforms.
Dr. Upasona Ghosh, Assistant Professor at the IIPH Delhi - Public Health Foundation of India.
Upasona is a social anthropologist in the field of health, gender and climate change. She has researched the impacts of climate change on community health for the past decade, aiming to understand how social and environmental vulnerabilities intersect and throwing light on the political-economic obstacles to achieving a climate-resilient health system. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar, India.
Chelsea Hunnisett, Policy & Advocacy Manager, Climate & Health Alliance.
Chelsea is an experienced policy, advocacy, and government relations specialist with expertise in planetary health, food policy, and preventive health. She is currently Policy & Advocacy Manager at the Climate & Health Alliance, Australia. She has conducted research in planetary health policy, wellbeing economies, and food ethics and published multiple op-eds in medical journals.
Andrea Hurtado Epstein, Climate program manager for Latin America, Health Care Without Harm.
Andrea has over eight years of experience in climate, environment, and sustainable development policy. Before joining Health Care Without Harm, she served as Coordinator for Sustainable Development at the Mexican Foreign Ministry, overseeing Mexico’s positions in multilateral environmental agendas. She is passionate about working to secure global health equity by treating the climate crisis as a health crisis.
Josh Karliner, Director of Global Partnerships, Health Care Without Harm.
Josh works to build a zero emissions, climate-resilient, and more equitable health care sector. Since joining Health Care Without Harm in 2005, he has established a series of initiatives, including the organization’s Global Green and Healthy Hospitals network. Josh led Health Care Without Harm’s recent work with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UK COP Presidency to secure commitments from more than 60 governments for sustainable, low-carbon, and climate-resilient health care.
Dr. Arvind Kumar, Chairman, Institute of Chest Surgery, Chest Onco-Surgery & Lung Transplantation at Medanta, India.
Arvind is a surgeon specializing in the treatment of surgical diseases of the chest. He leads India’s largest and most comprehensive chest surgery program and is a pioneer of super-specialty chest surgery. Concerned about observing a sharp rise in lung disease, alongside his surgical role, he works to combat the issues caused by air pollution and climate change. He is the Founder & Managing Trustee of the Lung Care Foundation, an active partner of Health Care Without Harm, and a Clean Air Champion with the Every Breath Matters campaign.
Diana Picon Manyari, International Climate Director, Health Care Without Harm.
Diana has over 20 years of experience in the field of development and public health. As Health Care Without Harm’s International Climate Director, she works to support decarbonization and resilience in the health sector as well as leading national policies for climate action. She has lived and worked in South Sudan, Thailand, Myanmar, and Ethiopia and has provided technical assistance to organizations working in Africa and Latin America on issues of climate resilience, food security, infectious disease, and immunization.
Shweta Narayan, International Climate and Health Campaigner, Health Care Without Harm.
Shweta is an environmental health researcher based in India. She has over two decades of experience in campaigning, advocacy, and community organizing for environmental justice issues. She leads a Health Care Without Harm program aiming to accelerate the role of health professionals in climate action and has dedicated years to providing legal, media, and scientific research support to the residents of pollution-affected communities and workers exposed to toxic chemicals.
Azeeza Rangunwala, Global Green and Healthy Hospital (GGHH) Coordinator, groundWork.
Azeeza is a medical scientist and the Africa Regional Coordinator of the Global Green Healthy Hospitals program. As a senior campaign manager at groundWork, an environmental justice organization and the African strategic partner of Health Care Without Harm, Azeeza works to transform health care facilities, health organizations, and health systems towards climate-smart healthcare. She is based in South Africa and has over 8 years of experience in health policy and research.
Vital Ribeiro, Chair of the Board, Healthy Hospitals Project.
Vital is an architect and urban designer who has been developing programs on sustainable health care for the past 35 years. He is a member of the international NGO Healthcare Without Harm and is president of the board of the Healthy Hospitals Project, a Brazilian NGO dedicated to transforming the healthcare sector into an example for society as a whole in terms of protecting the environment and the health of workers, patients and the population in general.
Manjit “Jit” Kaur Sohal, Regional Climate Manager, Health Care Without Harm.
Jit is a disaster and climate resilience expert with 12 years of experience. She currently manages Health Care Without Harm’s climate and health program in Southeast Asia, with the overall goal of transforming the health sector in the region to become climate-resilient, sustainable, and low-carbon. Before joining Health Care Without Harm, she supported the Philippine government's disaster response and social protection programs.
Press contact for interviews
Tom Clark, COP28 Communications Lead, Health Care Without Harm. tclark@hcwh.org / +44 7740 647 023.