Lana Woolf is an independent consultant based in Naarm (Melbourne) where she works on Social Inclusion, Participation, and Belonging in the aid and development sectors. Lana has more than thirty years of experience working in the margins with people who experience intersecting oppressions, including First Nations / Indigenous communities, refugee and migrant women and women with very low socio-economic statuses, People with Disabilities, and people with diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, Expressions and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC). Before starting Community Powered Responses, Lana was one of the two co-founders of Edge Effect, an organisation focused on the inclusion of people with diverse SOGIESC in humanitarian and development contexts. 

Lana’s work intends to increase your skills, knowledge, and practice in including the excluded. Change around the globe is happening at an accelerated rate, with under-represented communities (e.g.,Women, People with disabilities and people with diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, Expressions and Sex Characteristics aka LGBTIQ+ people) left behind or left out. 

Many of our current systems and policies aren’t functioning in the current climate, or designed to place people and communities at the heart of the solutions. I want to live in a world where people, community, organisations and governments can come together to creatively tackle our toughest challenges, and spark the change to create the futures we want. My new challenge is to work in intersectional ways to ensure that people in all their diversity, are not left behind