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| Formation | 8 June 2001 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Kon Karapanagiotidis |
| Purpose | To offer support to people seeking asylum |
| Headquarters | 214–218 Nicholson Street, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia |
| Services | 40 programs |
| Kon Karapanagiotidis | |
Staff (2022) | 100+ |
Volunteers (2022) | 1000+ |
| Website | asrc |
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is an asylum seeker support organisation in Australia. The ASRC, based in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, provides aid, justice and empowerment programs to over 1000 asylum seekers living in the community seeking refugee protection. The ASRC is run by a team of over 1000 volunteers and around 100 paid staff, and is headed by former university lecturer and lawyer Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM.
Soon after the centre was opened in June 2001, attention was brought to the general public to asylum seekers' issues by the "Tampa affair" in August of that year. This incident, when the Australian Government under Prime Minister John Howard refused to grant the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa permission to enter Australian waters after it had rescued 438 Afghan asylum seekers, prompted greater interest in the centre and led to more volunteers signing up.