Meet the Team
Mariana Goetz
Director
Mariana is a human rights practitioner with over 20 years experience in post conflict justice, including at the Rwanda Tribunal and Special Court for Sierra Leone, where she was a Legal Adviser. More recently she was Head of Programmes at Aegis Trust, and Deputy Director of REDRESS where she had been its Post Conflict Justice Adviser working on transitional justice cases and projects with affected communities in DRC, Northern Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic. See more.
Najlaa El Khalifa
Legal Advisor
Najlaa is a Legal Consultant working with Rights for Peace on research into hate speech in Sudan. Previously, she was Acting Executive Director for Sudanese Rights Group as well as Human Rights Officer and Consultant for the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies where she specifically investigated torture in Sudan. Najlaa has further experience working at Human Rights Watch researching Sudanese women human rights defenders and at REDRESS as their Sudan Project Officer and coordinating their Criminal Laws Reform project and Prohibition of Torture in Sudan.
Cara Priestley
Advocacy Officer
Cara has worked in the UK and internationally in campaigns, policy, research and coordination roles in the areas of civilian protection, human rights, peacebuilding and disarmament. Most recently, she has worked in Geneva at the UK Mission to the UN and the Quaker United Nations Office. She has an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, and a BA in History with Middle East Studies. She is assisting Rights for Peace with making connections to ongoing policy debates or processes internationally, particularly in relation to the best use of international human rights approaches in upstream prevention of mass atrocities.
Abhaya Ganashree
Legal Intern
Abhaya studied Law at the University of Leeds where she was also the Editor-in-Chief of the Human Rights Journal and a Laidlaw Research Scholar within the School's Disability Law Clinic. Abhaya is currently working as a Research Assistant to Professor Tanya Aplin at King's College London and is working with Rights for Peace in putting together a practitioner's guide on hate crimes.
Mariama Sabally
Finance Assistant
Mariama is our Voluntary Finance Assistant. She is an accounting and finance graduate from the University of Hertfordshire. Alongside working for Rights for Peace, she is currently training to be a chartered accountant.
Andrew Walker
Communications Assistant
Andrew has recently joined the Rights for Peace team as our volunteer Communications Assistant. He has an LLM in Criminology & Criminal Justice and a BA in French and German studies from Lancaster University. He will be contributing to the development of the website and the management of our social media platforms, as well as assisting with the publication of our blogs and newsletters.