People at the Rose Castle Foundation

Canon Sarah Snyder

Founder

Sarah has over thirty years of experience working with communities and senior religious figures around the world to promote faith-based ways of finding peace and rebuilding relationships.

A Cambridge University theologian specialising in Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and a trained mediator, Canon Sarah is also the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Adviser for Reconciliation programmes and resources. She has previously worked as the Director of Partnerships at Religions for Peace International, and directed conflict schools for the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at the University of Cambridge.

Her early career as a documentary producer for BBC Television included time spent living and working with the Tuareg nomads in the Sahara Desert, which sparked her fascination with interfaith work and the power of hospitality. She since founded Rose Castle Foundation as a global network that equips reconcilers to cross divides and transform conflict.

Neil Satchwell-Smith

Co-Director (Strategy & Organisational Development)

Neil has over 20 years’ experience as a diplomat and development practitioner supporting dialogue and programmes to reduce conflict and alleviate poverty. He was a Head of Office and Senior Governance Adviser for the Department For International Development and a Director for Gatsby Africa.

"I am struck by how difficult human beings find it to engage and disagree well across divides, the lack of attention this receives in peacebuilding approaches and the significant and under-resourced role faith can play in building trust and restoring broken relationships.

No surprise therefore that I am inspired by the vision of the Rose Castle Foundation. My role is to identify how our experience with Abrahamic faiths and facilitating encounters across deep divides can best support those working in situations of conflict… an exciting prospect.

When not at work I love hanging out with my family, being outdoors and playing sport…though I find I’m increasingly better suited to watching it than playing it!"

Dr Robbie Leigh

Co-Director (Impact & Partnerships)

Robbie is an Anglican theologian and educationalist. After completing a PhD in the Christian theology of reconciliation at the University of Cambridge, he became a teacher and was Head of Religion and Philosophy at Highgate School until 2021. He was a military intelligence analyst in the British Army Reserves until 2016. From 2013-2022 he volunteered with Global Covenant Partners, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the victims of religion-related violence. He continues to read, write, and teach Christian theology whenever he gets the opportunity.

"I joined RCF because I passionately believe that the world must harness the deep wisdom of religious traditions to cultivate peace and flourishing for all.

My interest in interfaith engagement and peacebuilding developed while undertaking doctoral research on the theology of reconciliation at the University of Cambridge. Participating in Scriptural Reasoning during this time was profoundly influential, and I became utterly convinced of the need to embrace the dignity of difference in order to meet the challenges of a complexly religious and secular world."

Hannah Larn

Head of Programmes

Hannah has over a decade experience working in peace and reconciliation, formerly working for the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation in community facilitation, empowering groups to take action towards peace in their own neighbourhoods. Her journey also led her to the United Nations headquarters in New York, encouraging decisionmakers to consider the perspectives of communities when designing the policy that impacts them. Hannah has completed her MSc in Humanitarian Studies with a focus on grassroots peacebuilding. She has experience working in Israel-Palestine, Kenya, Egypt, the US, and across the UK. Driven by her Quaker faith, Hannah has a belief in the transformative power of peacebuilding.

"As a Quaker I am very committed to carrying out our Peace Testimony, and for this reason I am delighted to be working as part of the wonderful team at Rose Castle Foundation to equip people around the world with the skills to carry out peace and reconciliation work.

I love having the opportunity to work so closely with so many people in the process of designing programmes for our partners and ensuring everyone involved gets the best experience possible.

When I'm not facilitating programmes at Rose Castle, I’m often back in Liverpool, enjoying the beautiful parks, restaurants and community spirit of this wonderful city!"

Phoebe Dill

Content Design & Partnerships Manager

Before joining the team at RCF, Phoebe worked in her home country of Bermuda for a grassroots organisation that sought to empower individuals who have struggled to find employment. Alongside this, Phoebe completed her Masters in reconciliation and peacebuilding with the University of Winchester, a remote degree bringing students together from diverse contexts, including conflict zones. Passionate about social justice, Phoebe has worked in the Philippines with an organisation that equips the criminal justice system to end impunity around the crime of modern-day slavery.

"I am often struck by the complexity of what it means to be human, in all its beauty and its brokenness. Our ability to connect in our humanness – across great diversity and difference- to build relationships over a shared meal or mutually experienced emotion cannot be underestimated. Reconciliation for me is a site where we can achieve unity while allowing diversity to thrive, to allow healing on a micro scale of individual relationships, that drives all the way up to the macro level of systemic changes.

In my role with Rose Castle Foundation, I enjoy the evolving journey of content design as we work closely with our partners, ensuring programmes are meaningful and tailored to each individual context and need, within spaces of bravery and hospitality. I love to think creatively about the most impactful way to be co-learners and allow people to bring their whole self into a Rose Castle programme.

When I am not at work you will probably find me cooking, baking or working on a DIY project. I love to hear people’s stories and experience other cultures. I hope I have a chance to hear yours!"

Anna Caffell

Research & Project Manager

For ten years prior to joining Rose Castle Foundation, Anna worked as a caseworker and researcher in the UK parliament. After being deeply impacted by the division witnessed during the 2016 Brexit Referendum, she initiated and led a research stream in a London based think-tank examining models for national reconciliation found in Colombia, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka.

In 2014 Anna co-founded two networking organizations: the Women in Leadership Network (WLN) and the Internal Justice Forum (IJF). She formerly served as a director for the CCF in parliament and currently serves as a Trustee for Lyn’s House Cambridge, a charity that brings together those with and without learning disabilities around shared hospitality. She is passionate about helping create community, shaping rhythms of prayer with others, and enjoys various forms of creative writing.

"I’m truly delighted to have joined the team at Rose Castle Foundation and be part of this inspiring vision to help equip global leaders to transform conflict, which is needed to an ever-increasing degree!"

Georgia May

Rose Community

Having helped shape Rose Castle Foundation through it's earliest stages of formation, Georgia has recently pivoted her focus to grow a community of practice - Rose Community - that is deeply connected to the Rose Castle Estate and our Cumbrian roots while serving Rose Castle Foundation's evolving pedagogy and expanding global network.

Georgia studied Geography and Theology at Durham University, which inspired a curiosity to explore the intersection between faith, conflict and the land. The Rose Community is living out the journey of applying Rose Castle Foundation's core methodology into the particularities of people and place, primarily through regenerative practices that address the agricultural and ecumenical setting that Rose Castle sits within.

"It has been an incredible journey innovating around faith and peacebuilding across an international landscape through the first decade of Rose Castle Foundation's life. A particular passion has been designing programmes that genuinely welcome both depth of faith and the dignity of difference into a shared place of hospitality, with our own creative spin that welcomes the delight of surprise and possibility!

Becoming a mother brought an instinct to focus closer to home and nurture a community vision that could embody the heart of all Rose Castle Foundation exists to serve. The Rose Community is committed to shaping a long term legacy of peace at Rose and I cherish the opportunity this gives me to go deeper into the living practices that shape our work.

I hope our own pioneering journey will be a support to - and, most significantly, enriched by - the communities we work with around the world who are on a similar journey but with their own distinctive challenges and opportunities of people and place!"

Meet the Team