influencers! – Lena Huda
Lena Huda has only lived in Australia for a couple of years so far, but has already had more influence here than many achieve in their lifetime.
Despite being a busy mother of four young children spaced just two years apart in age, since arriving here, Lena has thrown herself into full-time advocacy work.
She’s co-founded two organisations:
30 Please is asking for the speed limits on our local streets to be reduced to 30 kilometres per hour, Australia-wide.
Safe Streets to School is advocating for a range of measures that will make it safer for our kids to walk or ride to school.
In this episode, Lena explains her motivations and experiences, having grown up in Germany where she could walk and cycle independently from a young age.
Despite her shock when arriving in Australia and seeing how unsafe conditions are here, she’s calmly set about changing her newly adopted homeland.
Watch the full episode below
About Lena Huda
Lena is the founder of 30Please.org. She grew up on a quiet residential street in Germany, where 30km/h speed limits were implemented in the 80’s. From 6 years old, all children in the neighbourhood either walked or cycled to school. It was normal for children to play on the streets.
Before moving to Australia in October in 2019, Lena has had a successful career working in senior positions for major investment banks in London, including Morgan Stanley and Barclays. The COVID19 crisis, gave her time to reflect upon contributions she could make to society so she decided to dedicate time to launch 30Please.org.
Inspired by the successful 20’s Plenty for Us campaign from the UK and by a research paper calling to reduce the default speed limit of 50km/h to 30km/h published by the British Academy “If you could do one thing…” Lena decided to campaign for lower speed limits. This is a science-backed low-cost measure that would save lives, prevent injuries, reduce health inequalities, reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions, promote stronger communities, enable more walking and cycling and reduce obesity.
Lena lives with her Australian husband and four children in Wollongong council and started her campaign in her local neighbourhood.