Q & A with Poppy Hankir, Head of Business Partnerships at the HLA 

Ahead of our exhibition and session at AidEx this October, we caught up with Poppy. Our partners and friends will get to chat with Poppy one-on-one in Geneva later this month.

Firstly Poppy, where can people find you on October 23rd and 24^th? 

I will be wo(manning) HLA’s booth on the Aidex Exhibition floor (stand B31), with my colleague Nwabundo Okoh, HLA’s Communications and Marketing Specialist. We both love to meet new people in the Aid sector and will have sweet treats at our booth- so make yourself at home, and don’t be shy! Please come and speak to us to find out about:  

1. What the HLA is all about.  Who we are, services/approaches we offer the humanitarian sector, examples of projects and programmes that we deliver, and an overview of our different initiatives in crisis contexts. 

2. How you can partner with us. Whether you are an individual aid worker (or interested in getting into the aid sector) or represent an NGO, donor, tech company, Government entity, University or fellow learning/capacity strengthening organisation, there are ways you can partner with us! 

3. Our tech offer. Come to our booth to explore some of the innovative ways we deliver learning, research and capacity strengthening initiatives via our Kaya e-learning platform. From Immersive Learning to Virtual Reality to Game-Based learning, we can show you how we have designed award winning online programs for humanitarians.  

4. Initiatives for humanitarian Leaders. Developing leadership skills in the humanitarian sector is at the core of the HLA’s offer. Come and find out about our leadership initiatives, including coaching & mentoring in crisis contexts and our feminist leadership programme.  

You may also spot our colleague Dr. Amr Kamel, HLA’s SHIFT Programme Management Lead who is attending AidEx as a guest speaker to discuss Innovative Financing for Aid Programmes. When not speaking/moderating discussions he will be happy to talk to you about the successes and lessons learned from HLA’s SHIFT programme, which is being delivered in Ukraine, Türkiye and Syria.  

Funding is hard to come by and learning doesn’t often get prioritised, can small NGOs (with limited funding) who appreciate HLA’s work and platforms partner with the HLA?

Yes! Our Kaya e-learning platform is free to sign up to, and learning content is free for individuals – over 750,000 people are currently accessing over 600 courses in up to 12 languages on Kaya! We’d love to show you how to access Kaya and start your learning journey with the HLA.  

We offer NGOs with limited funding the opportunity to produce, publish and track content on Kaya for their staff and partners at low cost (compared to commercial LMS subscriptions) including the opportunity to digitally badge learning through a Hpass badging subscription, which has a discounted rate for small-sized NGOs. 

We’d also love to meet smaller NGOs and see if there would be opportunities to create joint-projects or funding proposals.  

What type of organisations and individuals are you looking to connect with this year? 

We’d love to meet anyone interested at an individual or organisational level in collaborating with the HLA and helping us reach our mission of equipping humanitarian leaders, and supporting locally led humanitarian action. We would be particularly keen to hear from donor agencies which may be interested in funding this mission. We would also love to meet any individuals or organisations with a background in coaching & mentoring and/or organisational development in the humanitarian sector, for possible joint-programming opportunities.   

Kaya is an amazing platform that is helping thousands of people – humanitarians and humanitarians-to-be. What opportunities are available for the wider humanitarian sector in relation to Kaya?

The HLA offer subscriptions on the Kaya Learning Platform for organisations to create, share and track e-learning opportunities with their staff, volunteers, partners and the wider Aid sector. 

If you would like to know more about the HLA’s Kaya services and subscriptions for organisations, please make an appointment to speak with me I will also be demoing our Kaya platform services on both days of AidEx, so please stop by to find out more! 

The HLA is involved with coalitions like the Coalition for Mutual Aid in Sudan and committees such as the Disasters Emergency Committee. Is this something interested organisations can talk to you about? 

Yes, please come and find out more about how the HLA is contributing to humanitarian networks, convening and working groups.  

We look forward to seeing you all in Geneva! We’ll be at Stand B31 in the AidEx exhibition hall on both days.