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.

[2] Karapanagiotidis and his welfare students raised funds to create a small food bank for asylum seekers, opening on 8 June 2001.

A non-profit enterprise, Grasslands Grocery and Information Cafe, provided the ASRC with two rooms free of rent above a disused shop in Footscray, Melbourne.

[6] ASRC Catering[7] was launched in May 2005, with a team comprising workers from Sudanese, Indonesian, Sri Lankan, Afghani, Iraqi and Congolese backgrounds.

[12] Our Community recognised the ASRC for being a 'hardworking, largely volunteer-based organisation that is working to protect and uphold the human rights, wellbeing and dignity of asylum seekers.

[citation needed] On a state level, the ASRC has been influential in securing Victorian TAFE access for asylum seekers.

In March 2008 he was invited to participate in the Australia 2020 Summit in 2008, an initiative of the Australian Government convened by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Glyn Davis AC.

[25] He is known for his provocative ways of bringing attention to asylum seeker issues, such as performing at the 2011 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as elsewhere, as "The Hateful Humanitarian".

[26] In 2015, four of the seven directors in the ASRC senior leadership team resigned,[17] after complaining of a toxic work environment, mismanagement and bullying by Karapanagiotidis.

[27] The ASRC Board commissioned an independent report, which found no basis to the allegations, and, although he did not comment at the time, Karapanagiotidis has since strenuously denied that such a culture existed, although said that staff worked in a very high-stress environment.

[30] According to the ABC Drum, Pamela "has worked in the past 15 years fighting for the human rights of first outworkers in the clothing industry and then for refugees and asylum seekers.

Not Just My Story started with a series of dramatic and creative storytelling workshops with 30 asylum seekers and was performed in the 2011 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.

The play was directed by Brunswick Women's Theatre Director Catherine Simmonds in collaboration with Yumi Umiumare,[35] Arnold Zable and Myles Mumford.

[citation needed] In October 2010, the ASRC published a welfare paper, Destitute and Uncertain: the reality of seeking asylum in Australia.

[38] This paper references the UNHCR's 2008 figures, which say that in 2007/08, 97.3% of the 4750 asylum seeker applications submitted in Australia came from people who arrived by plane and now live in the Australian community.