04 JCAM 2021 Annual Review AJAN WITNESSING TO LIFE IN CONTRADICTING REALITIES Fr. Ismael Matambura, SJ - AJAN, Director In 2002 AJAN was born as a network, formed from already existing Jesuit responses to HIV in Africa. The 1990s and through to 2000 and beyond were times of great turbulence, for masses of people who were becoming part of the HIV & AIDS statistics, many of them in Africa. Theirs was an existential struggle against hopelessness, despair, and death. Once someone contracted HIV, she/he were said to be, using the Dinka term, adarwel: that is, a death sentence has been passed on him or her and death was definite. On top of that social and self-stigma, discrimination associated with the epidemic gnawed life out of the young and the old. It was against this backdrop that Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, 29th General Superior of the Society of Jesus invited Jesuits in Africa to “seek ways of increasing their involvement in this apostolate through greater cooperation.” On 21st June 2002, on the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, AJAN was officially set up and Fr. Michael Czerny, SJ (now Cardinal Czerny) was appointed as AJAN’s first Director. His task was to assist and encourage Jesuits in Africa and Madagascar to respond together and in collaboration with others to the challenge of HIV and AIDS. In this common fight they would learn from each other and above all, they would become a healing presence in the face of the devastating pandemic caused by HIV.