In memoriam
Father Frido Pflüger SJ
1947–2021
Jesuit, teacher, and finally Country Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Uganda: more than fifteen years of his life were devoted to the education of girls in Adjumani in northern Uganda. In June 2021 he died in Kampala.
This association carries his name — not as an obituary, but as a promise. Seven friends from Kolleg St. Blasien, who knew him as their teacher, carry on what he began in Adjumani: school places for girls for whom education opens the way into a life of their own.
Frido in his own words
Hear Frido himself.
Video: courtesy of Jesuiten weltweit
“Accompaniment, not just aid.”
Education as service to human dignity — that was Frido’s ethos.
A life of service
From Albbruck to Adjumani.
- 1947
Born in Albbruck
Frido Pflüger is born in Albbruck in Baden-Württemberg.
- 1966
Entered the Jesuit order
With his admission to the Jesuits, a life of service begins — shaped by education and a lived closeness to people.
- 1971
Teacher at Kolleg St. Blasien
Frido becomes an educator and mathematics teacher at Kolleg St. Blasien — the very place where, decades later, seven of his pupils would carry on his work. Ordained a priest in Munich in 1976, he returns to the Kolleg in 1981, after further studies, to teach mathematics, physics and astronomy.
- 1986/87
Philippine refugee camps
In the refugee camps of the Philippines, Frido first encounters the task that would define the rest of his life: education for people in flight.
- 1988
Deputy head at St. Blasien
As deputy head at Kolleg St. Blasien he shapes an entire generation of students.
- 1992–2003
Rebuilding in Dresden
After German reunification, Frido helps rebuild the St. Benno-Gymnasium in Dresden — from 1994 he leads the school as its headmaster for nearly a decade.
- 2003–2006
First deployment in Adjumani
In Adjumani in northern Uganda, Frido builds education programs with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) — the same place, the same task to which our association remains committed to this day.
- 2008–2012
JRS Regional Director East Africa
As Regional Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service for East Africa, Frido carries responsibility far beyond any single school.
- 2012–2018
JRS Germany and Berlin
As Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service Germany and refugee chaplain in the Archdiocese of Berlin, Frido gives people seeking refuge a voice in his home country as well.
- 2018
JRS Country Director Uganda
As Country Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Uganda, Frido returns to the country to which more than fifteen years of his work for girls’ education had been devoted.
- 19/20 June 2021
Died in Kampala
Father Frido Pflüger SJ dies during the night of 19 to 20 June 2021 in Kampala. What he began was not meant to end.
The line does not break
What he began goes on.
Seven friends from Kolleg St. Blasien carry on Frido’s work. They are the same schools, the same girls, the same partner: the Jesuit Refugee Service.
What Frido built in Adjumani lives on today in every school year we fund — for the 2024/25 school year, that means 24 children, 18 of them girls, of whom 100% stay in school. The accompaniment he meant has not ended; it has only changed hands.
Act in his name
Accompaniment, not just aid.
A school year costs €800. Your membership turns Frido’s promise into the dependable future of a girl.