Last month, confreres asked me what does “AEFJN” mean and what is it about?

AEFJN is the abbreviation for “Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network,” (in French “Réseau Foi et Justice Afrique – Europe”). AEFJN is a Faith-based International Network present in AFRICA and in EUROPE, established in 1988 by Catholic Religious or Missionary Institutes present in Africa and Europe. Nearly fifty Institutes are AEFJN members.

We as Missionaries of Africa are very much involved in supporting AEFJN through providing resource people as well as making an annual financial contribution. Actually, Fr. Martin Grenier represents the M.Afr at the annual AEFJN General Assembly and he works on the Steering Committee of AEFJN, based in Rome. In my function as JPC-ED Coordinator, I collaborate with the AEFJN team in Brussels. Several confreres in Europe are very active in the AEFJN ANTENNAE (national groups), such as Wolfgang Schonecke in Germany, Ted Wildsmith in UK and Miguel Larburu in Spain.

The AEFJN International Secretariat in Brussels does advocacy and lobbying work with European Institutions on issues relevant to Africa. The aim of AEFJN is to promote international economic justice and to be the voice for Africans especially for those who are exploited and marginalized through land grabbing, extractive industries and the unfair trade system.

In order to be efficient and to bring up relevant issues regarding Africa, AEFJN needs local information concerning economic injustice in Africa. This information can only come from you!

Indeed, every Missionary of Africa is a member of AEFJN along with the tens of thousands of members in the other fifty missionary institutes. That is a lot of people. Let us actively become the voice of exploited and marginalised people in Africa!

For more information, discover the new website of AEFJN Brussels: http://aefjn.org/fr/accueil/ or http://aefjn.org/en/home/

Andreas Göpfert
Coordinator of JPIC-ED

See also the presentation of AEFJN on our own website.