ASSAF - Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel Information

There are currently about 38,000 asylum seekers and their children live in Israel, most of them from Eritrea and Sudan. They abruptly left their families and left behind all their possessions, fleeing in the dead of night from their homeland, escaping brutal military rule, civil wars, genocide, sexual violence, robbery and murder on religious, social, or ethnic grounds. They traveled thousands of miles on foot through the Sinai Desert in a perilous journey, at the mercy of the smugglers who betrayed them, imprisoned them in torture camps, charged high ransoms for release, and left them wounded and scarred in their body and soul. ASSAF- Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel is the leading human rights organization in Israel that works to support and protect refugees out of a belief in the historical commitment of Israeli society to refugees. ASSAF has been operating since 2007 on two main levels: 1. Psychosocial Care: Those who turn to ASSAF are among the most vulnerable individuals in the asylum seeker communities in Israel, including teenagers and minors, torture survivors, men and women with physical and mental disabilities or various illnesses, the elderly, single-parent families, members of the LGBTQI community, and more. We serve these refugees through projects that provide individual therapy, support groups, acquisition of rights and information, humanitarian assistance, micro-advocacy, and more. 2. Advocacy and Policy Change: Along with the direct assistance, ASSAF additionally works to change policies and promote rights for refugees and asylum seekers in front of government ministries, the Knesset, and local government authorities. We publish studies documenting the state of the asylum seekers community and write actionable position papers that promote appropriate solutions. We believe that only through a combination of public advocacy and psychosocial care can the obstacles of refugees be overcome.