Making Refugee Rights a Reality
Making Refugee Rights a Reality
We are human rights advocates who support forcibly displaced individuals and communities as they reclaim their rights, agency and power. We aim to create a world where refugees everywhere can live safely, move freely, work, attend school and rebuild their lives. We advocate for a response to forced displacement that honors refugees’ freedom, dignity and autonomy, while also strengthening the communities that welcome them.
Our mission is to make human rights a reality for refugees.
Most refugees spend decades, even generations, confined in camps, prohibited from working, or otherwise prevented from rebuilding their lives. Asylum Access was founded to change this.
We focus our energy and resources on achieving long-term, positive change for refugees
We bring informed opinions, ideas and innovative suggestions to every interaction on the local, national and global stage
We promote creative problem-solving at every level of the organization
We engage with and trust refugee communities to identify and address barriers to accessing their rights
We prioritize the health, wellbeing and professional development of our staff and volunteers, and promote an honest, transparent workplace
We recognize that respecting and seeking to understand and incorporate various perspectives and backgrounds into our daily work is vital to effective decision making, programming and our overall ability to achieve our mission.
We recognize that as members of an international organization headquartered in the United States, we have a responsibility to identify and dismantle bias in ourselves, and to remove structural and systemic barriers in our organization and in the refugee response sector as a whole.
In the fall of 2019 we made a long-term commitment of time and resources into cultivating diversity, equity and inclusion in our organization and applying these lenses consistently and effectively to all aspects of our work and partnerships. Our journey is just beginning. We have started with a focus on learning and understanding the responsibility of being inclusive leaders. We know we can – and will – do more.
We also recognize that the experience of displacement from one's home country is about individuals – people for whom their race, ethnicity, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and ability form an important part of their identity but may compound the barriers that prevent them from rebuilding their lives in their new homes. It is critical that those with lived experiences of displacement are leading at all levels of refugee response, including within NGOs like Asylum Access and within large institutions that have the power to create and influence refugee policy.
Learn more about our commitment to refugee leadership
OUR GLOBAL APPROACH
Asylum Access is the only global organization dedicated specifically to advancing refugees’ human rights.
OUR LEADERSHIP
We are a family of national organizations in Mexico, Thailand and Malaysia. Our local organizations are led and staffed by nationals and refugees in these countries. There is a strong mutual trust and respect between us and our clients.
OUR FOCUS
On the international stage, we work with established institutions to shift the global system to better uphold and promote refugees’ human rights. We can help catalyze and lead systemic transformation because, uniquely among NGOs in the refugee response sector, we focus exclusively on rights and governance.
OUR EXPERIENCE
Our field experience using legal empowerment and policy change to turn rights into reality provides us with the credibility and expertise to offer pragmatic, effective solutions.