Nora Khalaf-Elledge is a gender and development practitioner and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faith & Civil Society Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. She specialises in the intersection of religion and gender within international development policy and practice. Since 2008, she has worked with international development organisations including the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD), the German Development Agency (GIZ), the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), as well as the gender offices of multiple United Nations (UN) agencies. Nora holds a Ph.D. in Gender, Religion and Development from the University of London, a Master’s in Gender and Development from IDS, and a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and Development from the University of Sussex.
Andrés Martínez-García
My role (at JIL) revolves around promoting collaboration and advancing faith-based initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. One key aspect of my work is leading the development of the LAC Regional Learning Hub, bringing together local and regional partners. I facilitate operations, help members identify research topics, support their studies and dialogues, and assist in publishing findings. An equally important part of my work involves building connections with funding partners to ensure the sustainability of the hub. I also represent JLI’s faith-sensitive mental health and psychosocial support work, connecting it to broader regional and global initiatives.
Another area of focus is the Faith and Positive Change for Children initiative, where I collaborate with UNICEF’s regional office and country offices, as well as global partners such as Religions for Peace and Arigatou International. Together, we work to strengthen faith-based contributions to children´s well-being and community resilience in the region.
Maurice A. Bloem
Maurice A. Bloem is the President/CEO of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), a learning network of researchers and practitioners. JLI builds fair and equitable spaces to create and share evidence on religions in development and community work and it aims to strengthen partnerships between and amongst faith and non faith actors, internationally and locally.
In 2012, Bloem started the 100-mile Walk, to raise awareness of issues around hunger and poverty. As part of the annual effort, Bloem Walks 100 miles in a single week, visiting programs supported and funded by CWS. More recently, as he needed to walk alone during the 2020 100-mile campaign, he started a podcast called Walk Talk Listen, so that he could still walk virtually with a number of guests. Now, he speaks on a weekly basis with leaders, including young and emerging ones, from different walks of life. The objective is to connect people around the world and to show that everyone’s perspective is true, albeit partial. Connecting might lead to listening and talking and even to walking and/or taking actions to make this world a bit better.