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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
Saturday 23 May
A walk over spectacular Surrey heathland from Haslemere to Witley station – about 9 miles – with lunch surrounded by a paddock of horses.
Monday’s 18 May – 27 July, 6.30-7.30pm on Zoom
A new online weekly Bible series co-hosted by The Revd Lucy Winkett and The Revd Dr Ayla Lepine will explore stories of pilgrimage throughout Scripture.
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
A place to practise leadership. For young adults already carrying responsibility – whoever they are, whatever their background.
The Cugoano Changemakers Programme is an 18-month paid programme for 15 young adults aged 18-30 ready to speak with courage, act with care and help shape what comes next.
Through monthly residentials and group work, participants receive a paid stipend, join a community of practice, develop ethical storytelling and lead a funded project with mentoring, governance and support.
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.
If you’re an individual who wants to register your interest, or an organisation who is interested in partnering with us, contact Marwah El-Murad at depdirector.changemakers@sjp.org.uk
Changemaker Lens has been made possible by the generous support of The Rothschild Foundation
Changemakers is built on three structural pillars
Storytelling and collective voice across borders
Collaboration and imagination in practice
Funded youth-led projects in the community
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 monthly residentials in different locations around the UK, peer support, and mentoring, the programme aims to fit around your existing commitments. You will spend 12 months building community, refining skills, sharing knowledge, and testing your ideas in real-world projects. Following this, you will be invited to apply for seed funding for your own project. You will imagine the world to be different, and work to make it so.
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.
Paid because this work matters
Every Cugoano Changemaker receives a paid stipend.
That is not an extra benefit. It is central to the programme. Too many opportunities for young people rely on unpaid labour, hidden privilege or the ability to give time for free. This programme is designed differently.
Participants are paid because their time, thinking, care and responsibility matter.
The Continuum phase also includes funding for participant projects. Changemakers are not only asked to imagine change. They are resourced to make it real.
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. One shared commitment.
Participants practise leadership across five areas where responsibility, power and change are lived every day.
For young adults ready to carry something real
This programme is for young adults who care about change and are ready to practise responsibility.
You may already be working in a community, organisation, institution, creative practice, campaign or project. You may be in business, culture, media, technology, civic life, social equity, climate or something that crosses all of them.
You need to be willing to think honestly, speak truthfully, listen deeply, receive challenge, work with others and stay accountable when things become difficult.
You do not need a polished application, a formal title or a perfect leadership story. You do not need to be the loudest person in the room.
All you need is a commitment to making positive change, and a belief in the power of community to make it happen.
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 is different.
Supporting the Cugoano Changemakers Programme means funding more than a course. It means funding young people’s time through stipends. It means funding real projects through the Continuum. It means supporting mentoring, safeguarding, governance, ethical storytelling and the conditions that allow young adults to carry genuine responsibility.
Participants receive real support, real challenge, and real resources. That is what makes this programme worth backing.
If you’re an organisation who is interested in partnering with us, contact Marwah El-Murad at depdirector.changemakers@sjp.org.uk
