Our New Name

Contact Us

PO Box 888631
Grand Rapids, MI 49588
info@asj-us.org
1 (800) 897-1135

February 2021

We are ASJ, and we are for a more just society. We are changing our name to ASJ to honor our shared commitment to seeking justice alongside our Honduran partner.

Our work for justice in Honduras first began in 1998 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, when a group of Honduran and North American friends developed a vision for justice. After years of working in community development, our founders realized that their initiatives were failing to have a lasting impact. Too many laws, policies, and systems in Honduras did not respect the needs and rights of the poor.

If social change was going to be possible in Honduras, our founders realized that we need to be working for justice. It was out of this vision that La Asociación Para Una Sociedad Más Justa, known as ASJ in Spanish, was born.

As ASJ’s work for justice got off the ground in Honduras, we found that there were people from around the globe who wanted to partner with us. Two years later in 2000, we opened a U.S.-based sister organization to join ASJ in doing justice in Honduras — called The Association for a More Just Society, known as AJS in English. Together, ASJ and AJS committed to being brave Christians working together for a more just society.

In the years since our two organizations began, our movement for justice has grown. From our early days of protecting land rights and advocating for just labor practices, to our recent accomplishments in violence prevention and reforming key government institutions, we have become key players in building a more just society — not only in Honduras, but also globally. The two organizations work together in many different ways including joint advocacy, publications, and justice education.

As our work continued to grow globally, the ASJ name became more well known outside of Honduras. With this growth, we found a growing confusion about our name — should we use our English name or our Spanish name? How should we talk about the collective work of our two organizations? Were we ASJ or AJS?

As we wrestled with these questions, it was clear that the most important part of our identity was our partnership with Honduras, and we wanted our name to reflect our Honduran roots. Not only was our work born in Honduras, but our movement for justice continues to be led by Honduran leaders — something we are proud of. As we considered how to clarify who we are together, our Honduran partner invited us to take on their name and be known by our Spanish name, ASJ.

Throughout this process of adopting a new name, the vision and mission of ASJ-US have remained the same. We continue to strive to be brave Christians dedicated to doing justice in Honduras and inspiring others around the world to seek justice in their own contexts. Together with ASJ-Honduras, we will continue working to create a more just society — now under the shared name of ASJ.