World Vision New Zealand’s Hanna Taylor Moller was just 13 years old when she picked up a copy of National Geographic and decided that one day she’d be able to help the drought-stricken communities she was reading about.
“As a 13-year-old, your dreams haven’t been squashed yet, so you dream big,” smiles Hanna.
But the inspiring mother of two did much more than dream. After graduating from Canterbury University with first-class honours in environmental engineering, her first job in 2008 was with the International Committee of the Red Cross. She helped set up water systems in Darfur, Sudan, following a genocide.
“We were at the most remote Red Cross base in an armed compound,” remembers Hanna.
“The staff was 40 men and there were two female cleaners. Otherwise, it was me surrounded by men in the middle of the desert.”
The maiden mission left no doubt in Hanna’s mind just how vital water is.
When aid work is undone
“We spent months drilling down 400 metres to hit an ancient aquifer and when we finally got this well installed, six hours later the government flew over and bombed it. Close to a year of work was destroyed.”
What followed was a decade of travelling around the world. Hanna rushed into environmental disasters, disease outbreaks, and war-torn conflict zones, delivering aid wherever people needed it most.
“During my aid work, I was on a contract with the International Rescue Committee, then Save the Children, where you had to fly anywhere in the world with 72 hours’ notice for three months. I lived like that for years.”
On the ground in Mali
In 2012, she was one of the first on the ground in Mali, West Africa, when rebel soldiers staged a coup amidst a cholera outbreak.
“I flew in with $13,000 strapped to my ankle to set up a large-scale response during the cholera outbreak,” Hanna recalls.
“I was on the UN task force and we were doing stuff up in rebel-held regions no one else could get to. I remember Mali because I was working 100 hours a week. I was very tired, but it made me realise what I’m capable of.”
On the frontlines of global disaster
She has also worked in Haiti and Nepal after major earthquakes, in Pakistan during floods and in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak. Candidly, Hanna admits that at times, the gravity of her work has taken its toll.
“To be honest, I haven’t always coped as well as I could have done – it’s hard to absorb the level of suffering,” she shares.
Throughout it all, her Christianity has provided comfort and purpose.
“My faith gives me a source of hope – I couldn’t have continued in this work without that belief,” she reflects.
Finding joy in unexpected places
But even amid poverty and disaster zones, Hanna has witnessed and experienced joy time and time again. Once in a small Pakistani village, a young girl unexpectedly took Hanna’s hand and led her to a house.
“We went downstairs to a basement with no windows or ventilation and there were all these women,” she recalls.
“They took their veils off and put music on, and we just danced. It was amazing.”
Above all, Hanna’s work has shown her just how strong the locals are.
The glue of society
“Women are incredibly resilient,” shares Hanna, who spoke to the Weekly ahead of International Women’s Day.
“If you can strengthen them, they will protect their families and they will hold society together. “I’m not saying that men do not have a role in that, but there is something about women as the glue of society, which I found incredibly empowering for me as a woman, helping other women.”
After 16 years overseas – 10 in frontline aid work and six in NGO strategy management – Hanna returned to New Zealand in 2023. She moved home with her husband, Niels, and their sons, Louis and Levi. There, she took up the role of head of Pacific Partnerships for World Vision NZ.
Empowering communities
Her role now is to oversee efforts to support families in the Pacific out of poverty. She focuses on initiatives such as savings groups, where women pool their money to start small businesses. She also strengthens child protection measures and provides practical infrastructure support, including water tanks and gardening systems.
“I’m really privileged to do the job I do,” enthuses Hanna, who will be forever inspired by the mothers she meets.
“They are so strong and so resilient. “I’d say to women, ‘You can do more than you know and you can withstand more than you know, and you can change more than you know. And don’t let anyone
tell you otherwise.’”
To find out how you can support women and girls to transform their lives or to donate, visit worldvision.org.nz
