Victoria Macfoy, who has a pharmacy degree, almost had to close her dream pharmacy because of financial struggles and poor upkeep. It was hard for her to see her community suffer, as local health workers and clinics were stretched thin and lacked resources. After AJAN held a training session at St. John Paul II Parish in Sierra Leone, Victoria learned about AJAN’s social enterprise model, which combines a faith-based mission with sustainable business. Supporting her went beyond her academic skills; it became a way to empower her community and promote health, inspired by her own experiences and faith.

AJAN’s approach to youth sponsorship in the health sector is deliberately holistic. It does not empower, advocate, and train healthcare and others working with the vulnerable communities, the network accompanies young people across what it calls the ‘full arc of formation’: spiritual, professional, and entrepreneurial. For Victoria, this meant supporting her former training, followed by a structured business mentorship, legal support to register a business entity, and seed capital provided as a recoverable grant, designed not as charity, but as the beginning of a relationship of mutual accountability.

Victoria’s pharmacy, a portion of every week’s profits is ring-fenced, which provides customised medication supplies to clients in the rural Kossoh Town of Freetown. The store also functions as a discrete counselling and testing service.

This business also serves AJAN’s mission of holistic care.  What distinguishes AJAN’s model from conventional NGO support is its insistence that social enterprise must be economically viable to be socially durable. Victoria Macfoy’s Enterprise is not subsidised indefinitely; it is expected to grow, to repay its recoverable grant, and eventually to become a node in a broader community health network. In this, AJAN draws on the Jesuit intellectual tradition of cura personalis, care for the whole person, extended into the economic sphere. In addition, AJAN’s pharmaceutical sponsorship initiative is part of a continent-wide strategy that recognises healthcare access as both a human right and a site of evangelisation.

For Victoria, the journey is still unfolding, and the results are tangible. In its few months of operation, this pharmacy is serving clients, dispensing quality medications to patients, has employed one additional young person, and has repaid some percentage of its seed capital ahead of schedule. She is following the AJAN model and has begun mentoring two other AJAN-sponsored youth who will be completing their pharmacy training.