JRS Australia has two community spaces in Sydney. In 2019 alone, there were: 

3723 people seeking asylum,* refugees, migrants in vulnerable situations served

1350+ people had access to fresh food and essential items through our foodbank over the course of the year, with over 330 receiving support each month

1,381 people received legal advice through the 90 legal clinics run in our JRS spaces in Westmead and Parramatta in partnership with Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS)

Over 1036 Opal Card concession applications completed, giving people seeking asylum access to discounted public transport

117 English classes for 1:1 sessions, in addition to 32 Play with English sessions, held

94 cooking Together meals shared

114 volunteers donated their time in 2019 to ensure our work continued

26 families (including 44 adults and 54 children) and 7 single men assisted with accommodation support

300+ women supported through the JRS Women’s Space and the WomenNSW funded Finding Safety Project

172 people assisted with work readiness and employment support through our Empowered to Work program

In 2019, JRS advocated and engaged with the community for policies of welcome and protection.

2143 students around the country through JRS’ Refugee Voices program

918 people reached via our Community Conversation program connecting Australian communities with stories directly told by people seeking asylum and refugees

43 meetings with federal, state and local government decision-makers. JRS also facilitated leaders with lived experience to speak to politicians directly

34 conferences, roundtables, and policy forums included JRS’ presentations

29 media mentions

38 policy/advocacy networks at local, national, regional and global levels include JRS

90 attendees at two cutting-edge JRS sector training sessions bridging the gap between the the domestic violence and refugee/asylum seeker sectors

40 attendees at the JRS Finding Safety Project’s hosting of Australia’s first-ever round table with women seeking asylum. Power and Agency in Limbo highlighted the issues of females seeking asylum and was hosted in partnership with SSI and ACCESS QLD

Our Annual Report 2019 provides more details on our impact. Please click here (PDF format).

Resources covering our COVID-19 response including our JRS frontliner team’s reflections can be found here. 

Unfortunately, COVID-19 has been particularly devastating for people seeking asylum. An overview of how we are  responding to this impact can be found here.