About Us
The America Team for Displaced Eritreans, based in Southeastern Pennsylvania, assists Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in the United States and around the world – through resettlement services, policy advocacy, and life-saving interventions on behalf of Eritreans in perilous circumstances. We are the only organization in the United States dedicated specifically to that mission. We have developed working relationships with governmental, inter-governmental, and non-profit organizations in the U.S. and abroad, and those relationships aid materially in the effectiveness of our work.
The America Team is an all-volunteer organization that subsists entirely on privately donated funds. We are not aligned with any U.S., Eritrean, or expatriate Eritrean political parties or organizations. The America Team is registered as a Section 501(c)(3) public charity with the United States Internal Revenue Service.
The tree depicted in The America Team’s logo is known as Daero, which grows south of the town of Segeneitti. It is famous in Eritrea for serving as an outdoor meeting place, where people congregate and exchange views, and it thus represents open and safe discussion and debate. The four terms in our logo – hope, education, opportunity, dignity – express ideals that The America Team strives to help achieve for Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers.
Our Leadership
The America Team’s board of directors consists of both Americans of Eritrean origin and native-born Americans. Our president, John Stauffer, served with the United States Peace Corps in Eritrea from 1966 to 1968, teaching English and science to rural middle school students there. He then embarked on what was to become a long corporate career in the U.S. In 2003, after the worst of the repression within Eritrea began, he joined with one of his star Peace Corps students – who had attained educational and professional success and was now an asylee living in the U.S. – in founding a precursor to The America Team. They officially formed The America Team in 2010.
