Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Sharpham

21st October, 2025
by Katie Tokus | 5 Min Read
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Equality, diversity and inclusion are paramount at The Sharpham Trust

We are committed to providing an inclusive environment for all, here at The Sharpham Trust.

We recognise that inequalities are woven into the structure of society and that there will be barriers that might prevent access to our programme.

Sybille Pouzet, Sharpham House cook

In this year, we gave bursary spaces to 130 people on a low income - enabling them to access Sharpham's invitations and offers.

Although we don’t pretend to have all the answers, we are on a learning journey to ensure that our retreats and courses are widely accessible and that people who come to Sharpham feel welcome, safe and accepted for who they are.

See our Equality and Diversity page here and below, how (in this reporting year) we moved forward on our commitments to making The Sharpham Trust a warm and inviting place for everyone.

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Equality, diversity and inclusion are paramount at The Sharpham Trust

Our statement

We recognise that celebrating diversity, difference and relatedness is at the core of creating healthy communities and ecosystems.  We acknowledge that we have inherited habits, cultures and views that will sometimes result in unconscious bias, and we strive to uncover and undermine these.  Our programmes provide opportunities to cultivate mindfulness and compassion as ways to dismantle structures within ourselves, organisations and communities that may lead to marginalisation, alienation and suffering.  

Mindfulness has a special role to play in helping to undermine discrimination because the practice can help to foster

  • a greater understanding and awareness of the interconnectedness of all life

  • our ability to see and appreciate different perspectives and experiences

  • compassion for ourselves and others

  • a greater awareness of our own inherent prejudices and bias

Areas of work

We're working to embed Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the following areas of our charity's activities and this work continued throughout 2024-25:

  • Strategy
  • Disability
  • Identity, including gender, sexuality and ethnicity
  • Age
  • Faith & belief
  • Communicating with our audiences
BIPOC retreatant does yoga in the South Wing Annexe at The Sharpham Trust

Strategy

In this reporting year, we:

  • Recognised where we could do better as an organisation and we identified priority areas and groups of people to work with: young people, team-training around gender identity and racial equity 
  • Developed inclusive and welcoming words that are read out at the beginning of Sharpham Trust retreats in all of our venues
Image of man's hand holding feather gently to symbolise compassion, illustrating Sharpham Trust's Dharma Pathway meditation retreats

Disability

In this reporting year, we:

  • Offered free and subsidised courses for people with mental health challenges via our Mindful-In-Nature project - a significant part of our EDI work 
  • Gave volunteer opportunities for people with learning disabilities and mental health challenges. About 70% of our garden and nature conservation volunteers have a learning disability or mental health challenge
  • Focused on neurodiversity and inclusive practice and resources at our Practitioners' Gathering
  • Offered retreatants with more complex needs the chance to bring an accompanying enabler free of charge  
Inclusive bunting, heralding our LGBTQIA+ retreat at The Barn: Ease of Being
Tasha Bassingthwaighte

Identity, including gender, sexuality and ethnicity

In this reporting year, we:

  • Launched a retreat at The Barn for a BIPOC audience, which filled up and led to further sold-out retreats. These retreats - a rarity in the UK - are now a regular part of our programme
  • Recruited new leaders of colour to the team 
  • Developed and applied an inclusive gender identity statement for men's and women's retreats
  • Planned and launched our first Sharpham House Ease of Being retreat for LGBTQIA+ people - and it was almost full
  • Organised and hosted our first ever focus group for our BIPOC audience to feed in ideas and observations
  • Offered race-awareness training to our staff and mindfulness leaders
  • Developed a proposal and budget for trustees to engage a consultant to help us communicate and interpret the colonial heritage of Sharpham House and Estate including art work and artefacts, books and our libraries
Ageing well, living mindfully

Age

In this reporting year, we:

  • Built on previous successes at The Barn by launching an Ageing & Awareness retreat at Sharpham House, for people aged 55+
  • Encouraged nature-connection and experiential learning in young people who helped to plant trees on the estate
  • Hosted a new, free and sold-out tree-planting retreat for young people at The Coach House
  • Continued to promote 75% bursaries for young people to come on Barn, Coach House and Woodland retreats
  • Recruited younger teachers and coordinators to the team
A charity offering events, training, leadership programmes and multimedia content which equip and inspire people to become peacemakers in their own contexts
St Ethelburga's

Faith & belief

In this reporting year, we:

  • Hosted a mixed Christian and Muslim retreat for St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace - a Christian charity that works with people of all faiths and none, and has a multi-faith team and board of trustees
  • Continued to emphasise that our retreats, courses and our natural burial ground at Sharpham Meadow are open to people of all faiths and none

Sharpham Trust Weddings
Sharpham Trust/Emma Stoner Weddings

Communicating with our audiences

In this reporting year, we:

  • Ensured our equality and inclusion webpage was more visible on our website and easier to find
  • Trained our Communications Officer in improving communications with young people
  • Reviewed our website's imagery to ensure pictures used are representative of different audiences
  • Commissioned content advertising our LGBTQIA+ retreats
  • Promoted our LGBTQIA+friendly weddings