Looking Back, Looking Forward: Reflections and Anticipation for the start of 2026
LIVE EVENT: The Forgiveness Café - Exploring the Art and Psychology of Forgiveness
We’re excited to invite you to the first Forgiveness Café of 2026, taking place at Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. This Café will be led by our Executive Director Sandra Barefoot, and Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Psychology at Keele University, Dr. Masi Noor, and offers a free-flowing yet deeply insightful space for reflection, dialogue, and personal growth at a time of year when themes of renewal and healing feel especially meaningful.
The gathering will centre on an open conversation that integrates both the art and the science of forgiveness, beginning with a short presentation to help orient and open the discussion. There will be a break during the session, during which participants can make the most of the ground-floor café, widely regarded as serving the best coffee in town! Participants are warmly encouraged to bring their own questions, stories, experiences, and insights to contribute to the Café discussion.
Details
Event: The Forgiveness Café: Exploring the Art and Psychology of Forgiveness at Keele in Town
Date: Saturday, 31st January 2026
Location: 53 Ironmarket, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ST5 1PE, UK
Time: 11.00am – 2.00pm GMT
Tickets: Donate what you can
Please click the button below to register for this event.
In Reflection: Delivering our Forgiveness Café to women at HMP Eastwood Park
Late last year, our Executive Director, Sandra Barefoot, co-facilitated a Forgiveness Café gathering to a group of women at HMP Eastwood Park, alongside long time collaborator Anne-Marie Cockburn. Below, Sandra reflects on the significance of seeding this new branch of our Café initiative, and what it means to be able to bring it to the prison estate, where we have engaged with for many years:
‘In November 2025 we commenced a new funded opportunity to explore five Forgiveness Café’s with women who have attended our RESTORE programmes in the NEXUS Unit, at HMP Eastwood Park. We decided to begin these cafes exploring collective collaging to bring forth conversations in a different way. These collages are from two cafes we have led to date and represent the diverse thoughts, feelings, textures and images that represent these conversations.
The Forgiveness Café has ignited many feelings among participants, and new insights to come to the fore:
“Forgiveness is not the end, merely the start”
“Its F**KING HARD”
“Forgiveness is not forgiving the act but realising we are all human and can make mistakes”
“Forgiveness might look wrong to others but its different for everyone”
“Forgiveness is the ULTIMATE form of revenge”
And some questions and thoughts that continue to be explored; “Am I worthy or deserving of forgiveness?”; “Who is forgiveness actually for?”; “I forgave too easily so how do I change?”; “What exactly am I forgiving?” and “it’s unbearable that another family member has forgiven, yet I cannot”.
In Reflection: RIPPLES by Marina Cantacuzino
Our founder, Marina Cantacuzino, reflects on how the work of The Forgiveness Project is seeded and grows.
‘From time to time, people write to us and their messages provide a quiet sense of affirmation. I was delighted at the start of January to be invited to give an hours presentation on the subject of Roots, Resentments and Repair for an online Level 5 Diploma in Relationship and Couples Therapy. The invitation came from a woman who seven years ago had taken part in a workshop that Sandra and I had developed for a NAOS Group training. She wrote of continuing to follow our work closely:
“The Forgiveness Project made such an impact on my life when you ran the weekend some years ago. I vividly remember the discussion circle where you allowed us each to hold your talking stick. As a result of that day, I had a small talking stick made for myself, and I now introduce the concept whenever I am working with dynamic therapy groups or couples. I would love for even one person to gain a similar experience. I also frequently recommend your books. Even for those raging amidst betrayal, I find they often find something calming in Forgiveness is Really Strange”.
So my thanks to Pamela Roberts for letting us know where our work has taken her and how it lands!’
READ NOW! Explore our books on forgiveness
Forgiveness is Really Strange
You too can read Forgiveness is Really Strange, written in collaboration by Marina Cantacuzino and Dr. Masi Noor.
This graphic novel, based on science and real-life stories, illustrates the complexity of forgiveness and what it can mean to different people and its potential for positive change. It explores the key aspects of forgiveness and the impact it can have on the mind and psyche.
Forgiveness: An Exploration
Marina’s latest publication, Forgiveness: An Exploration, is now available as a paperback!
Here, Marina seeks to investigate, unpick and debate the limits and possibilities of forgiveness – in our relationships, for our physical and mental wellbeing, how it plays out in international politics and within the criminal justice system, and where it intersects with religious faith. She speaks to people across the globe who have considered forgiveness in different forms and circumstances. She talks to a survivor of Auschwitz; to someone who accidentally killed a friend; to people who have lost loved ones in acts of violence; to a former combatant in The Troubles as well as to the daughter of someone he murdered.
Through these real stories and expert opinion, the reader gets to better understand what forgiveness is and what it most definitely isn’t, how it can be an important element in breaking the cycle of suffering, and ultimately how it might help transform fractured relationships and mend broken hearts.
Click the button below to find our more and to view the hardback version that is also available on our website.
Book Club Resource
You can also access our complimentary book club resource by visiting our website. Since its publication in 2022, people have had many spirited and illuminating discussions about Forgiveness: An Exploration. As such, we are offering this free resource to support readers in their explorations of the different themes that arise throughout the book.
This resource offers guided chapter summaries, advice for new book club facilitators, and prompts to help you read deeper into the stories explored in the text. Please click the button below to buy the book, download or view our free book club resource, and support our charity.
Quote of the week
“I was totally against the Iraq war. People think they’ll feel better if a bit more of the enemy is destroyed. But in fact, so often it is only innocent people who die, and eventually you forget why you started fighting in the first place. Revenge is a basic human instinct, the animal part of man, and it gets us nowhere.” - Mariane Pearl
Really appreciated the quotes from the women at Eastwood Park, especialy the one about forgiveness being the ultimate form of revenge. That's such a powerful reframe tbh. Worked briefly with a restorative justice program a few years back and the question of "who is forgiveness actually for" came up constantly. Its one of those things that sounds simple until you're actually sitting with someone working through it.