African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN) is a network of organizations that fight against HIV/AIDS, created on June 21, 2002 by

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. Based in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

, it operates in several countries around the world, being present in 20 countries in 2017. It has on several occasions championed the funding deficit to fight against VIH/AIDS in Africa. It is one of the entities in the Catholic Church that handles about 25% of AIDS patients worldwide and can reach 100% of Africa in remote areas, according to the Vatican studies. Javier de la Torre Díaz, 9 October 2013, page 138

Michael Czerny Michael F. Czerny (born 18 July 1946) is a Czechoslovakian-born Canadian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development since 23 April 2022, after serving as interim prefect for sev ...

SJ founded and headed the entity from 2002 to 2010. The reason for the organization's creation was "to encourage the Jesuits in Africa and Madagascar to find and develop projects" related to the fight against AIDS. These entities can be groups of people infected with the virus or affected by the virus, including those who fight against stigmatization and discrimination, who promote responsibility and prevention, and who are sensitive to the culture, faith, and spirituality of the people. Czerny argues that limiting the fight against AIDS to condom use is not enough, and conveys that the selfishness seen in the pandemic is alien to African values, and is a subconscious reaction against imposed, foreign values. At the end of the 2010s, Paterne Mombe, an AIDS expert in Africa trained in Biology at

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...

, headed the network. He decided to take up the fight against AIDS after helping AIDS patients from Uganda. "It is not about telling them to use the condom or not to do it, but to form a critical conscience so that they can make an informed choice and choose what they think is best for them," he said in an interview.

References

{{reflist Humanitarian aid organizations Society of Jesus