About Us

LAPIDO means ‘to speak up for’ or ‘advocate’ in the Acholi dialect of Northern Uganda. The charity was birthed out of a campaign to ‘Break the Silence’ and end the twenty-year war there.* The campaign, prompted by the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, taught vital lessons about the spiritual dimension in international affairs. Public affairs and media techniques, harnessed to the international church’s unique networks, achieved what no other agency had.  By increasing publicity and generating a huge amount of spiritual and social capacity over three years, the campaign handed politicians a bigger electoral mandate to address a difficult issue.

The charity seeks to amplify the voice of the forgotten and persecuted church around the world.  It aims also to improve what we’re calling ‘religious literacy’ in public affairs.  Secularization and distorted history have squeezed a sense of the transcendent from public life, and made religious discourse tabu.  This can and must be changed.  The world’s poor are also religious.  The rich can do little to change the world for the poor, or avert religiously sanctioned war, unless they learn the language of faith.

We are non-denominational, politically non-aligned and internationally experienced.  Our trustees have all worked in either Africa, India or the Pacific, on diplomatic or aid assignments.  Our Associates are senior journalists and professionals living and working on four continents.  We understand how the secular and the sacred interpret each other - and we seek to contribute that wisdom to the international discourse.

 

Who we are

Dr Jenny TaylorExecutive Director - Dr Jenny Taylor

An established media professional, academic and writer, she trained with Yorkshire Post Newspapers and became the first race reporter in the Westminster Press Group, disconcertingly finding herself interviewing her heartthrob Cat Stevens, just after he became Yusuf Islam. She has travelled widely seeing the work of civil society organizations all over Asia and Africa at first hand.  She is an expert on the connection between faith and culture, on which she has addressed parliamentary and Commonwealth gatherings.  Her doctorate is from SOAS in London on Islam and secularization.

 

Mariusa ReyesMariusa Reyes hails from Venezuela. She is currently Latin American Correspondent for the BBC World Service based in Mexico City. She gained an overseas scholarship to study International Politics at Oxford University, and has an MA in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics. She's one of the few foreign correspondents ever to get an interview with Fidel Castro.

 

Christoph HasselbachChristoph Hasselbach is currently with Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcasting service. A life-long Anglophile, Christoph started his career at the BBC World Service - which he thinks of fondly as his 'alma mater'.

 

 

 

Mike HoldsworthMike Holdsworth is a business consultant and the Founding Business Associate of Lapido Media who joins us from Willis, the global risk management group. He holds a BA in history & comparative religion, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies. He was a career officer in the RAF for 19 years, and is a Baptist lay preacher, short-listed for The Times Preacher of the Year competition in 2000.

 

Julia BicknellJulia Bicknell has 25 years' BBC staff expertise as radio and TV producer and reporter, based variously in Pakistan, Middle East, Vietnam and Sudan - both Khartoum and Juba. She specialises in launches, project management, networking and media training. She also has a Diploma in Coaching.

 

 

Nick PageNick Page was the well-modulated voice behind Radio 2's Nick Page Programme for many years, and has clocked up 35 years behind one mic or another. As a radio anchorman and producer he hosted Nightline for the London Broadcasting Company as well as programmes for schools on BBC Radio 4. As a communication consultant, he choreographs public events and conferences around the world, and is Secretary of the International Christian Media Commission. He is a member of the panel of judges for the Andrew Cross Awards.

 

* The Acholi lands on the Uganda/Sudan border are poor in natural resources, but rich in spirituality and courage.   When President Museveni routed them from power in a coup in 1986, they took to the hills of southern Sudan to enact God’s revenge.   As the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, they brought mayhem and terror to the north for more than 20 years.   They did so according to a misreading of Ezekiel in the Old Testament.   This, mixed up with traditional snake religion and muti sacrifice held an entire nation in terrified thrall. The secular world understood little of this, least of all the destructive power of a sin/revenge/fear culture in a lawless state.   They ignored the situation, or dropped bombs on it (the US’ disastrous Operation Iron Fist).   It was a handful of Acholi church leaders who alone among 1,000 intellectuals, stayed to offer leadership, fight for justice and advocate relentlessly for a peaceful way through a terrible impasse that had become a by-word for child soldiering.   In partnership with British and European churches, they woke up the world.   Bob Geldof went and filmed there; the UN tripled its aid budget, and the International Criminal Court made it their test case.   Today, unique, traditional forms of reconciliation are being mediated by the church; the displacement camps are being broken up, and people are slowly returning to their villages.

 

Lapido Blog

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Downloadable Publications

Christianity or Occult?Ethics in Brief

‘Women have borne the brunt of our failed multi-culturalism’, argues Jenny Taylor in Ethics in Brief Spring 2008 issue

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Christianity or Occult?Christianity or Occult?

As cases of kindoki or ‘child witch’ abuse re-surface in Britain, a new downloadable report brings together material by leading African and English scholars from a recent symposium that throws light on some of the allegations.

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Featured Publications

Crimes of the CommunityCrimes of the Community

A devastating report on the rise of "honour-based" violence against women from immigrant communities in the UK. It is devastating not just because it reveals the complicity of some "community leaders" in killings, attempted murder and beatings, but also because its sources are so authoritative...

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Young, British and MuslimYoung, British and Muslim

'A most important book on British Muslims. It explodes many contemporary stereotypes to reveal a picture which is far more complex than is often supposed. It shines a light onto both new areas of menace and new avenues of hope. Every politician and policy-maker should read it.'
Paul Vallely, The Independent

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Conviction and ConflictConviction and Conflict

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali sets out fundamental guidelines on the role of religion in society and its relationship to nationalism, ideology and political institutions, and examines Christian-Muslim dialogue with particular relationship to the rise of Arab, Indian and Turkish nationalism.

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Not for Sale CoverNot for Sale

This is a must read for all those seeking to understand the issues surrounding sexual exploitation and abuse in our society today - the human cost of UK prostitution today and the scourge of trafficking for sexual exploitation exposed to our senses as never before.

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