Through a partnership between the Human Rights Center and the African Refugee Development Center, students will have the opportunity to join and learn from ARDC’s team of grassroots community organizers, educators, and human rights defenders working with the asylum-seeker community in Israel on social and economic inclusion through increased access to higher education. 

The African Refugee Development Center is a grassroots, community-based non-profit organization founded in 2004 by African asylum-seekers and Israelis in order to protect, assist, and empower asylum-seekers in Israel. We serve approximately 36,000 asylum-seekers predominantly from Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia currently living in Israel.

Currently, ARDC works to address gaps in services created by harsh governmental policies in 4 key sectors: education, livelihoods, advocacy, and rights empowerment. In the past 5 years, ARDC has worked to build and strengthen social mobility and economic inclusion of asylum seekers, seeing education and professional development as tools to achieve such ends.

To date, ARDC has served over 15,000 African asylum-seekers.