The Community Action Center was established in 1999 as part of the AQU’s services, in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, with the aim of serving the Jerusalem community in occupied Jerusalem using a rights-based community methodology, based on the belief in human rights, justice and equality. The center’s headquarters is located in an 800-year-old ancient building, originally the St. Julian’s Church, which was restored by Al-Quds University in cooperation with the Welfare Foundation.
The center aims to empower Palestinians in Jerusalem to access their rights and entitlements and to negotiate the complex bureaucratic procedures that control the flow of these rights. This mandate translates into empowering local residents to organize themselves to solve their issues collectively with special attention to socio-economic inequality and to mobilize their own voluntary capacities.
The Center’s vision is to advocate, promote, support and activate the role of individuals, institutions and communities, especially marginalized ones, to influence the challenge of racist policies and legislation and to achieve and protect social, economic, cultural, urban and political rights. In addition to contributing to the development and growth of civil society in Jerusalem in particular and Palestine in general.
As for its mission, the Community Action Center works to enhance the role of individuals and academic and civil institutions in the development and empowerment of various population sectors in Jerusalem society in particular and Palestinian society in general, and to improve their ability to access their social, economic, political and educational rights.