Michael Cassidy African Enterprise Founder

Michael Cassidy, founder and International Team Leader of African Enterprise, has been involved in evangelism, teaching and leadership ministries since 1962, the year he launched AE with a mission to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

Since then, he has led many missions to cities throughout Africa, as well as in other parts of the world, including Australia, England, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Costa Rica, Israel, Nicaragua, Ireland and Panama. To further the accomplishment of AE's mission – Evangelising the cities of Africa through Word and Deed in partnership with the Church – he has established evangelistic teams in Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe and support offices in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Michael has been instrumental in calling several major gatherings of church leaders, including the South African Congress on Mission and Evangelism in Durban in 1973, the Pan African Christian Leadership Assembly (PACLA) in Nairobi in 1976 and 1994 and the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (sacla) in Pretoria in 1979.

In 1985, in the deepening polarisation of South African society, he launched the National Initiative for Reconciliation. This attracted church leaders of widely disparate denominations and races for the purpose of reconciling with one another and implementing this practice in their respective churches and communities. He was one of the leaders of the historic National Conference of Church Leaders at Rustenburg in 1990, and in 1993 chaired a Consultation on Human Rights and Religious Freedom in Pietermaritzburg.

Last year, Michael addressed European Parliamentarians, members of the diplomatic corps and officials of the European Commission and NATO in Brussels, and spoke in 1995 in response to former Irish President Mary Robinson at the United Nations 50th Anniversary Dinner at Dublin Castle. In 1996, he addressed 300 Irish and Northern Irish leaders at the United Prayer Breakfast in Dundalk, Ireland, speaking on the need for ongoing reconciling dialogue.

He also addressed an assembly of Parliamentarians and other leaders at the New Zealand Parliament House in Wellington and to Uganda government and civic leaders in Kampala. In 1994, he addressed President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe government ministers at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast in Harare, as well as the opening session of the KwaZulu-Natal Parliament in Ulundi. In 1993 he was a guest speaker at a meeting of Eastern European leaders at Windsor Castle in England and in 1992 he addressed a gathering of British Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords in Madam Speaker's Lounge in the House of Commons. He has also been involved in South Africa, particularly in the past several years, in behind-the-scenes facilitation of initiatives which have brought together a wide spectrum of political leadership in dialogue.

These efforts have been widely acknowledged as important contributions to the miraculously peaceful South African election in April 1994. In 1996, at the request of President Nelson Mandela, he and other church leaders were deeply involved in spearheading Project Ukuthula, an extensive and successful peace initiative in KwaZulu-Natal in the run-up to the province's local government elections.

Michael has written many books including, A Witness For Ever – The Dawning of Democracy in South Africa, which recounts much of the work of some of the backstage players in the run-up to South Africa's 1994 election, as well as a two-month devotional called Michael Cassidy's Window on the Word. Some of his other books are: The Politics of Love, The Passing Summer, Chasing the Wind, Bursting the Wineskins, The Relationship Tangle and Where Are You Taking the World Anyway?

Since 2000, he has been broadcasting Daywatch, a weekly Christian commentary on current issues on nine radio stations throughout South Africa.

Michael was born in 1936 in Johannesburg and grew up in Maseru, Basutholand (now Lesotho). He was educated in South Africa at the Parktown School and at Michaelhouse School. He holds a Master of Arts in Modern and Medieval Languages from Cambridge University (1958) in England, a Bachelor of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California (1963), and an honourary Doctor of Humane Letters from Azusa Pacific University in southern California (1993). In 1983 he was admitted to the Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest honour accorded a layman by the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (Anglican). The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International made him a Paul Harris Fellow and he received the St Michael's Award from Michaelhouse School in 1997.

He and his wife, Carol, live in Hilton, near Pietermaritzburg in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, and have two daughters, one son and five grandchildren.

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