Advocacy and Awareness Raising
The ARDC advocates for the rights of all refugees and asylum seekers in Israel and for a humane and fair Israeli asylum policy. We are also working hard to raise awareness about the plight of African refugees and asylum seekers, reduce incidents of discrimination and change public attitudes towards the community.
Our Current Programs
We endeavour to bring the difficulties experienced by asylum seekers and refugees to the public’s attention and generate support through the following avenues.
Giving Back with Love
Refugees and asylum seekers frequently volunteer in projects as a means to express solidarity with other vulnerable groups and demonstrate that they are making a valuable contribution to the Israeli society. In mid-2008, the ARDC facilitated a group of refugee volunteers to visit Sderot―an Israeli town close to the border with Gaza that was under siege from near daily rocket attacks at the time―to help its residents. Afterwards, the volunteers performed a concert of African music and dancing to show their support for the community. Other examples of volunteer projects include helping to clean up the damage in northern Israel after the rockets attacks from Lebanon 2007, cleaning the houses of Holocoust survivors during Pesach in 2008 and 2009, and cleaning up rubbish in HaYarkon Park in 2009
The Refugees' Rights Forum
The ARDC is an active member of the Refugees' Rights Forum which consists of eight human rights organisations who share our objective to promote the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. The aim of the Forum is to lobby before key decision-makers in government for legislation implementing the international obligations Israel committed to when signing the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Working with the media
The issue of African refugees and asylum seekers features heavily in the Israeli media and unfortunately much of the coverage is misleading, inaccurate and provocative. There is a tendency to focus on the numbers of asylum seekers currently in Israel and the potential number who may try to enter which is frequently not based on reliable sources. We respond quickly to any negative coverage by providing journalists with accurate information and statistics and the opinions of refugees and asylum seekers on the policy issues which affect them. We also connect refugees and asylum seekers willing to talk about their experiences with journalists to create positive stories and advance their cause. A number of our programs have been profiled in the media. Click here to read more.
Other public awareness raising
We encourage invitations from tour groups, schools, universities and community organisations to attend seminars or events to discuss the issues surrounding refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. Our objective is to ensure that the public is accurately informed.
Our Achievements
Our advocacy work resulted in the following successes for the refugee and asylum seeker community:
- In the past two years, 40 unaccompanied minors have been enrolled in Israeli boarding schools and given the opportunity to progress their education. These minors had arrived in Israel without family or caregivers and were originally homeless living on the streets in south Tel Aviv—an area that is known for its high levels of poverty, crime, drug-dealing, theft, prostitution and frequent sexual and gender-based assaults. Thus, they were highly vulnerable to participating in high-risk activities and faced a serious risk to their well-being. The opportunity to learn in this supportive, structured environment represents their first step towards rebuilding their young lives. ARDC sponsored 48 individual psychological evaluation reports produced by child psychologist Lisa Law as a precondition for these mniors to be accepted at boarding schools.
- 2000 Eritreans seeking asylum were granted work permits following campaigning by the ARDC in cooperation with other human rights organisaitons. The government was motivated by the squalid, overcrowded conditions of the community-organised shelters where the asylum seekers had been living to grant them the right to work and allow them to find the means to support themselves.
- In July 2009, the Hadera-Gadera policy was abandoned as a result of heavy lobbying by the Refugees’ Rights Forum. The Tel Aviv district is home to a significant proportion of refugee and asylum seeker community, however, it has not always been a place of safe refuge. In response to the sharp influx of asylum seekers from Africa, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert devised the ‘Hadera-Gadera’ policy to prohibit refugees and asylum seekers from living or working in central Israel. However, education and job opportunities from asylum seekers are poor outside Tel Aviv and the only access that they have to medical services and support are those provided by human rights organisations based in Tel Aviv, such as ourselves and the Physicians for Human Rights. In mid-2009, Operation Oz began to enforce the Hadera-Gedera policy resulting in waves of asylum seekers being arrested and detained. However, in July 2009, as a result of intensive lobbying in co-operation with other human rights organisations, the ARDC persuaded the Israeli government to abandon the policy.
