How it all began ..The Jesuits, India and JAAI

The Jesuit Order "Society of Jesus" was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1530s. One of his first companions was the then professor of the Paris University, Francis Xavier, who came to India in 1542. He opened the first Jesuit school in Goa in 1543. It was named St. Paul's College. Nothing exists of this institution today except its memory, but it was the predecessor of hundreds of other schools and colleges. JAAI is also affliated to the World Union of Jesuit Alumni.

Today, in India the Jesuits conduct not less than 38 university colleges, 5 Institutes of Business Administration and 155 high schools spread throughout the country, almost all of them among its most reputed (for example: St. Xavier's, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ranchi; Loyola, Chennai, Vijayawada; St. Joseph's, Bangalore, Trichy; XLRI Jamshedpur; XIM, Bhuvaneshwar). In them, more than 250,000 students belonging to every religious, linguistic and socio-economic group, receive their education.

JAAI was conceived at the Jesuit Alumni Congress in Chennai in 1995. Since then it has taken shape as an organisation, with a Governing Council, Constitution and a rotating Secretariat in place. It has also hosted five national congresses and an international congress. The 5th National Congress was held between September 7-9, 2007 in Trivandrum on the theme "Role of Alumni in Resurgent India".