During his Australian visit in 1930, English university evangelist Dr Howard Guinness fired up Australian university students with his powerful message and his single-minded devotion to Christ. He encouraged students to get actively involved in evangelism and as a result Christian groups began to form on university campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane.

Guinness returned to Australia in 1933-34 to encourage the fledgling groups, and small evangelical unions were also formed in Perth and Adelaide. In Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney the future leadership of an evangelical renewal was emerging. This network of groups joined together to form the Australian Inter Varsity Fellowship (IVF) in 1936, and by 1959 around 2000 students were involved with the Australian movement.

In 1947 Australia was one of the founding members of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), which now fosters ministry in 150 countries around the world. As a reflection of this affiliation, the Australian IVF changed its name to Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) in 1973.

Today local AFES groups (taking the name ES) are on every city University campus. To view the website of a particular campus select it from the menu above.

 AFES Across Adelaide is our the bi-annual newsletter of AFES in South Australia. Download it here.