As the world experiences the largest human displacement levels since WWII and a number of humanitarian crises, Turkey’s significance in the field of migration and asylum has risen as it became the world’s largest host country of refugees in early 2015. The Refugee Solidarity Network (RSN), a non-profit working to protect refugee rights in Turkey and beyond since 2014, takes an innovative approach to humanitarian assistance. Zaid Hydari, Co-founder and Executive Director of RSN, will outline the organization’s history, the refugee context and RSN’s current programming in Turkey, and RSN’s plans for the future.
Zaid Hydari holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin (2005) and a JD from Fordham University School of Law (2009). From 2010 until 2014 he worked in Istanbul with the Helsinki Citizens Assembly – Refugee Program, Turkey’s leading provider of refugee legal aid. He co-founded RSN as an opportunity to mobilize resources for overlooked and underfunded refugee legal assistance programs on the ground in Turkey.
Photo credit: Fabio Sola Penna/Creative Commons
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