Peter Grzic is an international humanitarian and disaster management expert, renowned for his exceptional leadership and cultural proficiency. He is also an experienced associate trainer and has been teaching on RedR Australia’s courses for many years.
Peter has remarkable coordination, liaison and facilitation skills. He has worked for UN agencies, governments, NGOs and the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, with experience spanning the Pacific, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Peter loves to share his knowledge with course participants, providing valuable guidance in global humanitarian systems, crisis management and navigating complex environments.
Jess Letch is a highly experienced international aid and development expert with a 25-year track record in providing strategic leadership in dynamic environments. She is also a longstanding RedR Australia trainer, who can often be found on our Hostile Environment Awareness Training course.
Her extensive experience spans Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Europe, demonstrating a deep cultural understanding and strong interpersonal skills. Jess excels in humanitarian operations, coordination, and team leadership. With a rich academic background, including a Master of Program Evaluation, Jess is adept at needs assessment, program design and monitoring. Her expertise lies in stakeholder engagement, building robust relationships with diverse partners, and resource mobilisation and she has held key roles in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Ukraine and across Asia-Pacific region.
A strong teacher and mentor, Jess is a catalyst for positive change in aid and development.
With nearly 30 years' experience in the humanitarian sector, Vuli Gauna is a highly respected expert in disaster preparedness, response and recovery across the Pacific. He has worked for the Fiji, British, Vanuatu and New Zealand Red Cross as well as the IFRC. Vuli leads teams of people during crises, taking on coordination and leadership roles.
Vuli is also a very experienced trainer. He is well known throughout the Red Cross and Pacific NDMO network for his work developing and facilitating training and in the standardisation of response tools such as post-disaster assessment, risk reduction, and disaster contingency planning. At RedR Australia, he also shares his wealth of knowledge and experience on our Essentials of Humanitarian Practice training course.
Vuli most recently wrapped up in an emergency management capacity-building role at SPC in the Marshall Islands, where he was stationed for several years.
A highly experienced water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) engineer, humanitarian leader and academic, Kathryn Harries worked for Sydney Water Corporation for a decade before transitioning to the international humanitarian sector.
Since then, for nearly 20 years, Kathryn has devoted her life to helping provide clean water and sanitation for people affected by humanitarian disasters around the world. Her work as WASH Cluster Coordinator in Somalia (2010–12) was recognised as global good practice for knowledge management and information sharing. Kathryn was Knowledge and Learning Manager for the DFAT-funded Civil Society WASH Fund (2013–15) and worked with governments and organisations across the Pacific to develop a Pacific WASH in emergencies handbook (2017).
Kathryn is also an experienced trainer and she loves teaching on RedR Australia courses, including our WASH and Essentials of Humanitarian Practice courses.
Listen to Kathryn on our Humanitarian Conversations podcast.
Richard Simpson is a highly respected humanitarian leader, innovator and educator. Richard has more than two decades of humanitarian experience working in 25 countries around the world, spanning international NGOs, Oxfam and CARE, and United Nations organisations such as IOM, UNOPS and the UNTAET peacekeeping mission in Timor Leste. He is also a much-loved RedR Australia trainer and has been teaching on our courses since 2016.
In 2022, he was in Ukraine as the country director for CARE. For Oxfam, he has lead on humanitarian strategy in Uganda, he was country director in Sri Lanka, and he was Oxfam Australia's response coordinator for the Nepal earthquake. He has also supported the occupied Palestinian territories, where he supported Oxfam with their ongoing response to the current crisis in Gaza.
Richard is a specialist in the area of humanitarian response evaluation, and helped to pioneer the Real Time Evaluation process, which is now commonly used in the sector.
Listen to Richard on our Humanitarian Conversations podcast.
Talei Tora is an accomplished communications specialist with 25 years' experience in strategic comms. She has worked across government, development and in private organisations, and shares her considerable experience as a RedR Australia associate trainer.
Early in her career, Talei worked for the Fijian military, followed by the Fijian Ministry of Information, where she worked as a journalist, and a film and television producer. Pivoting to the humanitarian and development sector, Talei has worked with the Australian Aid-supported Market Development Facility, the Australian Government's Fiji Program Support Facility and, most recently, she worked for the Pacific Community, also known as SPC, where she supported their georesources and energy program.
For more than a decade, Hannah Jay has dedicated her career to addressing gender-based violence in humanitarian contexts. She's worked extensively across Asia and the Pacific from Kiribati to Bangladesh, Cambodia, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru. She has supported a wide range of organisations with her expertise, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and Save the Children.
As a RedR Australia roster member, Hannah has deployed to South Sudan as a gender-based violence specialist with the United Nations Population Fund and she is an experienced associate trainer on RedR Australia's courses.
Ulf is a life-long humanitarian and protection expert with more than two decades’ experience across Europe, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. He has worked with notable humanitarian organisations, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Australian and Swedish Red Cross societies, the International Federation of the Red Cross and, most recently, the AHA Centre in Indonesia.
He is also a much-loved RedR Australia associate trainer and is always keen to share his knowledge and experience with training participants.
Our associate trainers are experts in their fields. Experienced educators, they are keen to share their significant real-world experience and help grow your career. We have more than 80 associate trainers who are ready to equip you with the skills you need.
RedR Australia provides quality training for humanitarian, development and emergency-response workers around the world. Our targeted courses help participants to grow—both professionally and personally. Being field-ready is a core goal of RedR Australia’s training courses.
Our courses equip participants with a deep understanding of the fundamentals and practical realities of disaster response. They also help participants to mitigate safety and security risks during crises and conflicts.
All of RedR Australia's courses are coordinated by our in-house training team and facilitated by our highly experienced local and international associate trainers. Our team have worked for a wide range of United Nations agencies and humanitarian organisations globally, and have many years of field and operational experience in climate-related disasters and conflicts.
If you would like to chat with our training team, please contact [email protected]
