Search...
We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
The Sunday Forum is an open online group, that runs parallel to the coffee after the service, from 12.30pm to 1pm on a Sunday, open to all.
Sunday 19 July 3pm-4.30pm
Hymns and Pimm’s in the Garden. Join St James’s Music Scholars past and present as they lead you through your favourite hymns, whilst enjoying a glass or two of Pimms.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
We aim to be a place where you can belong. We have a unique history, and the beauty of our building is widely known. Our community commits to faith in action: social and environmental justice; creativity. and the arts
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs £5,000 each day to keep the doors of St James’s open to all who already need us.
A reimagined St James’s realised. A redesigned garden, courtyard and new building capacity—all fully accessible— will provide beautiful spaces for all as well as improving our environmental performance.
Whether shooting a blockbuster TV series or creating a unique corporate event, every hire at St James’s helps our works within the community.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
For young adults aged 18 to 30 who already carry responsibility, and are ready to practise ethical leadership with others.
The Cugoano Changemakers Programme is an 18-month programme for 15 young adults aged 18 to 30 who are ready to speak with courage, act with care and help shape what comes next.
Through Circle days, peer learning, coaching, mentoring, systems thinking, ethical storytelling and Continuum project development, participants are supported to practise leadership in real conditions. Participation payments are made for core Circle days, and Continuum projects can be funded up to £6,000 for approved costs.
There are 13 Circle days over the 18 months. They will usually be held on a Saturday or Sunday. The first two will be held together over a weekend, and then there will usually be one per month.
The journey begins as a Cugoano Changemaker. Fellowship recognition comes later, when a participant completes the 18-month programme and meets the Cugoano Fellowship Standard through evidence, reflection, responsible action and contribution to others
A Cugoano Changemaker is not the loudest voice in the room. They are someone who knows when to speak, how to listen, and how to stay accountable when the room goes silent.
Applications are now open. You can apply directly, download the applicant pack, or book an information session to find out more.
Need support to apply?
If you would like help understanding the application form, need an adjustment, or want to talk through access needs before applying, please contact Marwah El-Murad at depdirector.changemakers@sjp.org.uk.
Asking for support will not affect your application. We ask so that we can help make the process as accessible as possible.
Cugoano Changemakers is supported by The Rothschild Foundation and the Heritage Fund. We are also seeking partners to support future cohorts.
Three pillars: Lens, Circles, Continuum
Cugoano Changemakers is built around three pillars. Each does a different job. Together they shape what the 18 months ask of you and offer back.
Storytelling and collective voice across borders
Collaboration and imagination in practice
Funded youth-led projects in the community
Lens is the creative and storytelling strand. It centres your voice, your perspective and the things you see that others miss. Artists and creative practitioners work alongside the cohort, bringing craft to how that perspective is expressed and shared. You do not need to be an artist. Lens is about your eyes on the world, supported by people whose work is telling the truth well.
Circles are the in-person learning days that anchor the programme. The cohort of 15 comes together for structured days of systems thinking, ethical practice, peer reflection and project work. Circle days happen in different locations across the UK over the 18 months. They are where the cohort builds trust, sharpens judgement and works through what leadership actually asks in real situations.
Continuum is the funded project strand, where each Changemaker develops and delivers their own project in the second half of the programme. Projects can be funded up to £6,000 for approved costs. Continuum is mentored from idea through to delivery. It is where what you have practised together meets something real that you make happen.
Open to all. Committed to what matters.
This programme is a place to practise leadership together. It honours the past, engages the present and shapes a more just future through reflection, relationship and real action.
It is rooted in St James’s Piccadilly and shaped by the legacy of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. It is open to people of all faiths and none.
Delivered through Circle days in different locations around the UK, peer learning, coaching and mentoring, the programme is designed to work alongside real lives and real responsibilities.
Over 18 months, Changemakers build community, sharpen their judgement, practise ethical leadership and develop a Continuum project with mentoring support. You do not need to arrive with a fully formed project idea. Continuum project applications are developed during the programme.
The journey begins as a Cugoano Changemaker. Fellowship recognition comes later, when a participant completes the 18-month programme and meets the Cugoano Fellowship Standard through evidence, reflection, responsible action and contribution to others.
The Cugoano Commitment
Some names decorate. This one asks something of us.
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano spoke with courage in a world that depended on silence. His legacy is not a backdrop to this programme. It is a living question: what are we willing to face honestly, what will we refuse to look away from, and what responsibility are we prepared to carry?
The Cugoano Changemaker Programme exists for young adults who are ready to practise that kind of leadership. Not leadership as image. Not leadership as applause. Leadership as moral seriousness, imagination, care and action.
To carry Cugoano’s name is to be called into something demanding and hopeful: to speak when silence protects the status quo, to listen when others are carrying the cost, and to act in ways that people can trust.
Cugoano Changemakers exists to help young adults practise ethical leadership in the conditions they are already in, with support that matches the seriousness of what they carry. Over 18 months, Changemakers sharpen how they see, how they decide, and how they act. They develop a Continuum project that puts something into the world. They join a peer community they can rely on, in a sector that does not always have one. They leave the programme more able to do what they were already trying to do, with more skill, more clarity and more company.
Participation payment and project funding
Cugoano Changemakers receive a participation payment for each core Circle day they attend, in recognition of the time and care they bring to the work.
The daily participation payment is calculated at the applicable National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage hourly rate for 8 hours: 7 hours of Circle participation and 1 hour for developing the related programme artefact.
Travel time, coaching sessions, triad meetings, mentoring conversations and informal preparation between sessions are not paid.
We use the term ‘participation payment’ rather than ‘stipend’ because the payment is tied to attendance during Circle days, not paid as a regular monthly sum.
Continuum projects can be funded up to £6,000 for approved project development and delivery costs. This funding is not personal payment. Continuum project applications are developed during the programme with mentoring support, so applicants do not need to arrive with a fully formed project in mind.
Head. Heart. Imagination.
Cugoano Changemakers practise leadership through three connected capacities.
Head: seeing systems clearly
Understanding how power moves, how resources are controlled, how decisions are made and where the real limits sit. Head asks: what is actually happening here, and why?
Heart: holding responsibility with care
Asking who is affected, who carries the cost, who is missing from the room and what dignity requires in practice. Heart asks: whose experience are we not yet seeing?
Imagination: acting towards a different future
Finding new routes through old problems, refusing easy answers and shaping possibilities that can live in the real world. Imagination asks: what could be different, and how do we move towards it?
Five domains.
Cugoano Changemakers works across five domains. These are the broad areas of focus the programme holds in view. Continuum projects often connect to one of them, though many sit across more than one.
Business and Economic Empowerment Work, money, ownership, opportunity and who gets to build what. Including small enterprise, fair work, financial access and economic justice.
Culture and Media Story, voice, representation and the public conversation. Including journalism, the arts, publishing, social media and how culture shapes what is possible.
Innovation and Technology What gets built, who builds it and who it serves. Including digital tools, design, science and how new technology meets old questions of fairness.
Civic Leadership and Social Equity How decisions get made, who is heard and who is missing. Including local organising, public service, advocacy, justice work and the daily work of holding institutions to account.
Climate, Environment and Sustainability The relationship between human action and the living world. Including climate justice, environmental health, food, heritage, and the choices that shape what gets left behind.
For young adults ready to carry something real
This programme is for young adults aged 18 to 30 who are already carrying responsibility in real situations, and are ready to practise ethical leadership with others.
You may be supporting others through difficulty, caring for people in your family or community, organising locally, speaking up about something unfair, holding a group together, contributing through creative practice, working in a community, faith or cultural space, or trying to improve something in your workplace, neighbourhood or education setting.
Cugoano Changemakers is rooted at St James’s Piccadilly and open to people of all faiths and none. You do not need to belong to a church, a faith community or any formal organisation to apply.
We are looking for people whose contribution, judgement, care and willingness to learn are already visible in some part of their life, work or community. You do not need a polished application, a formal title, a public profile or a perfect leadership story. You do not need to already describe yourself as a leader or changemaker.
Ordinary examples, local responsibilities, caring roles, family realities and community contributions count. What matters is not whether your work already has recognition, but whether you are close to real situations where choices, relationships and consequences matter.
Participants need to be ready to take part seriously in an 18-month programme of learning, reflection and action. That means being willing to think honestly, listen carefully, receive challenge, learn with people whose experiences may be different from yours, and stay accountable when things become difficult.
Programme at a Glance
For Supporters, Funders and Partners
Help young people practise leadership that matters.
Too often, young people are asked for voice but not trusted with authority. Cugoano Changemakers is different.
Supporting the programme funds the things that make this kind of leadership possible: paid Circle days where the cohort learns together, coaching and mentoring across the 18 months, safeguarding and governance that take participants seriously, the Lens creative strand, and the Continuum projects Changemakers design and deliver in the second year.
Continuum projects can be funded up to £6,000 each for approved costs. The mentoring, the time, the seriousness with which we treat each Changemaker’s project: these things cost money, and they are what makes the difference between a programme that talks about leadership and one that builds it.
Ways to support:
Fund participation payments for a Circle day Fund a Continuum project Become a mentor Partner with the programme
If you are an organisation interested in partnering with us, contact Marwah El-Murad at depdirector.changemakers@sjp.org.uk
