Heartstone Patron
Sir Derek Jacobi – Actor and Stage Director
Sir Derek Jacobi is Heartstone’s Patron and has performed as a reader in several Haertstone Odyssey stage shows with Sitakumari. He is one of the most iconic actors of British theatre and screen and was knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre. He is only the second to enjoy the honour of two knighthoods – Danish and English. His passion for drama began in childhood and over the years, he has played some of the most well-known Shakespearean roles on stage and toured worldwide.
Heartstone Advisory Council
Barbara Cleary is a Human Resources specialist with 20 years management and Human Resources experience at Director level in the public and voluntary sectors and her own consultancy. She has led and championed diversity issues in the workplace as director of HR and Equalities and Diversity and as a freelance consultant. Currently Vice Chair for SecurityWomen, an organisation that advocates for more women in the security sector globally. Former trustee for UN Women UK National
Committee and led the London Leadership Team from 2009. Until July 2018 she was also Vice Chair for NAWO and represented England on the UK Joint Committee on Women (UKJCW). From June 2016 to June 2018 she was the representative for UKJCW on the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) where she was a member of the Board and was elected to the Executive Committee. In 2018 Barbara was a UK delegate for W20, the women’s forum for the G20 states.
Julie Craik is the Film Officer for Tayfilm. After training as a lawyer in Scotland, she worked in offshore finance in the Channel Islands and in media and asset backed finance at Deutsche Bank/Bankers Trust. She worked on projects such as finance for Sky TV and the Oscar winning film, The Last Emperor and the acquisition of J Walter Thompson by advertising conglomerate WPP. At TayScreen she developed the €6million project North Sea Screen Partners that was financed by the European Union.
The partnership achieved an Oscar winning film “In A Better World”. She is helping to develop Allied Mouse Ltd and “The Heartstone Odyssey’ film/tv/transmedia programme.
Dame Louise Ellman, former MP, Liverpool Riverside, Louise has supported Heartstone since 2000, from her position
then as MP for Liverpool, Riverside, and has watched the organisation grow over the years, helping the organisation to
secure a national profile, support from the DFE and Home Office andother national funders. She co-sponsored the House of Commons event in 2016 which saw Heartstone Story Circles established in most regions across England.
Wendy Emberson, Physiotherapist has supported Heartstone since its founding in 1990. She has brought her professional expertise but also her experience in business to the service of the organisation.
Bennett Obong former Manager for the Hate Crime Forum, Metropolitan Police, Bennett secured the support of the Met for the exhibition programme and Story Circle project to see both initiated across London with a launch ‘Chandra’s London’ exhibition event at New Scotland Yard in 2010. He continues to facilitate new projects with introductions to potential venues and partners.
Dr David Rose, former lecturer Roehampton Institute, London University and Member SHAP Working Party on World Religions
in Education, he has known and supported Heartstone since its foundation in 1990 and its precursor, Natya-Padam, in the latter half of the 1980’s as a small arts/cultural organisation in London. He held a London B.D when he first started teaching Religious Education in ILEA secondary schools in 1971. He covered a range of different Faith traditions with the purpose of bringing an inclusive approach rather than one that ignored and excluded pupils for whom their faith, culture and personal identity were so different. 10 years later, he became linked with The Heartstone Odyssey (THSO) whilst working as Advisory Teacher for the ILEA assisting the implementation of its multi-faith RE syllabus for inner London schools in 1984. The approach adopted used a range of foci that permitted pupil reaction and response that was not prescriptive and limiting on the individual. The story medium, The Heartsone Odyssey with Chandra as the central figure, was essentially aimed at the primary/early secondary stage with personal expression encouraged via questioning, discussion, performance, art and positive involvement in selected projects. The value of this multi-disciplinary approach became increasingly attractive to those practising teachers doing INSET. By 1986 he was working at the Roehampton Institute of HE (one of the largest ITE Institutions in the UK at that stage) where he was in charge of the ITE degree course for Primary Education and believed strongly that alongside the developing National Curriculum at the time that students should be aware of the potential of combining inclusively a vital area of concern that the individual pupil might find difficult to articulate and express. He helped to bring the THSO Story Circle project to Roehampton University (as it became)
which was received positively by trainee teachers, both undergraduate and postgraduate. His Doctoral Studies in the 1990’s, concentrated on the social and cultural aspects of Religious Education legislation and its perception and impact on those involved within a multi-cultural society. He was a member of the SHAP Working Party on world religions in Education for more than 20 years, working to encourage both in inter-faith as well as mutual understanding of diversity and integration within society both locally and nationallv. He was a member of the Wandsworth SACRE for 18 years as well as Vice-Chair
of Governors at a local primary school.
Penny Smith-Orr was a Primary school teacher and has been the SACRE Officer in Croydon for 25 years. She also currently works as the RE consultant in Kent and Lambeth and has worked with several other South London boroughs. She has written and launched 7 Religious Education Agreed syllabuses for various authorities. She led and supported the Heartstone Project in Croydon schools over 4 years with four schools per year and The Croydon Gurdwara taking part. Some schools have continued with the project. She accompanied The Oasis Coulsdon pupils to the Tower of London, The Houses of Parliament and to Nato headquarters to promote the Heartstone Project and the Kosovo 25 photo exhibition. She is also the Chair of Faiths Together in Croydon, the Interfaith group for Croydon, putting on several Interfaith events per year.
Lorna John is a Head of Religious Education in a Secondary School in Croydon who first ran a successful Story Circle programme with two Year 7 classes in 2022. The engagement from the first day was refreshing – students read confidently and envisaged new ways of collaborating by discussing our shared heritage. They were able to develop problem solving by exploring discrimination and identity. Since then, she has continued to be a champion of Story Circles, both at her school but on a wider basis through her connection on the Executive of SACRE through which she is helping to spread the project further.