Meet the Trustees of Peacebuilding UK

Rachel Gillies (Chair)

Rachel works as a ‘Community Film Maker’, producing films with and for community groups around the West Midlands. This involves giving groups, particularly young people, the skills and the resources to tell their own stories on their own terms, to enable them to have a voice in local decision making. She focused on Russian History, International Development and Conflict Resolution as part of her BA in History and Politics at Lancaster University. She has been a Trustee since December 2005.

Hon. Chris Layton

Chris Layton is a former journalist and writer who for ten years was a chef de cabinet and Director in the European Commission. He founded Grimstone Community, a spiritual community providing courses in personal development, where he first met Chris Hunter. He is a longstanding Trustee of the One World Trust and is Chairman of Action for a Global Climate Community, an International NGO which promotes an initiative by willing countries to lead early action against global heating.

Alaudin Chilaev

Alaudin is a Chechen currently living in London with his wife and children. He has a PhD in Economics and lectured for over 20 years at the Agricultural Technical College in Chechnya. Alaudin has worked with numerous peacemaking and Human Rights organisations both inside and outside of Russia. He has been a Trustee of PBUK since December 2005.

Lucy Hannah

Lucy Hannah is a writer, trainer, and consultant, she works across the UK and abroad to inspire people from a huge variety of backgrounds and cultures, to fulfil their creative potential. She worked at the BBC for many years, as a producer in both factual programmes and drama. More recently, she’s been writer-in-residence at a young offender’s institute. Her media experience combined with her workshop skills has enabled her to set up infrastructures, and lead projects with dramatists in Sudan, unemployed trawler-men in Hull, corporate clients in London and young offenders in South Africa. In October 2007, Lucy led a 5 day workshop in the Crimea for the Little Star psychologists (please see Psychosocial page).

Peter Jarman

Peter Jarman as Europe Secretary of Quaker Peace and Service visited Russia about thirty times during the late Soviet period and was then appointed with his wife Roswitha to be Quaker representatives in Moscow from 1991 to 1994 when they established contacts with the peoples of the North Caucasus. Peter subsequently served on the Board of Friends House Moscow, a Quaker centre devoted to nonviolence, and was engaged with Quakers and the Swedish Transational Foundation for Peace in training exercises seeking to heal the hurt arising from civil wars in the Caucasian and Balkan regions. Until 1982 Peter was a university teacher in various countries. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

Juliet Schofield

Juliet has had substantial international development experience, having started her career in Moscow in the turbulent 90s working for the European Commission, later moving to the non-governmental sector to work with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in the Balkans. After a brief period moving between offices in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, Juliet joined the ‘Eurasia’ team at International Alert, a London-based independent peacebuilding organisation working directly with people affected by violent conflict. With a BA in Soviet Studies (SSEES, University of London) and MSc in International Development (LSE), Juliet brings an important combination of regional knowledge, programme design, management and fundraising skills to Peacebuilding UK.

Alice Lagnado

Alice Lagnado has worked as a Moscow correspondent for The Times, where she covered the second Chechen conflict as well as Russian politics and cultural issues. She then moved to Argus Media in Moscow, where she wrote stories and editorials about energy politics and oil and gas projects in Russia. She lived in Russia for 10 years. Alice now works at the Royal National Institute for Deaf People as assistant editor of their magazine, One in Seven, where she interviews well-known figures who happen to be deaf or hard of hearing; past interviewees include Jack Straw and Lord Richard Attenborough. She also works from time to time as a tour assistant for the Mariinsky Theatre (formerly Kirov) on their UK visits.