Aseel Al-Absi: At the Front of Responsibility

In Jenin, Aseel Al-Absi moves between spaces that may seem very different: her role in university classrooms, psychosocial support sessions, community work, and Al-Mahatta Association for Empowerment and Development, where she now serves as director. For Aseel, these roles are connected by one idea: being present when people need support.

Her journey began in 2019 with volunteering in summer camps, youth activities and community initiatives. Working directly with people led her to study social work and to remain close to the field even as her academic path advanced. She completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work with distinction and is now pursuing a doctorate in psychological and educational counselling at Al-Quds Open University.

Over time, her responsibilities grew. Aseel moved from volunteering to serving on the administrative board of Al-Mahatta Association, then into public relations, management and community programmes, before becoming the association’s director. Her work has brought her into contact with women heading households, mothers of orphans, university students, displaced families, and people facing serious health and economic challenges.

What stays with her most are the moments when a small intervention helps someone continue: a mother able to provide school or Eid necessities for her children, a university student receiving help with tuition, or a displaced woman finding someone willing to listen as well as respond to her immediate needs. “Sometimes what looks like a small intervention to us can mean that another person is able to continue their path,” she says.

As conditions in Jenin and its refugee camp became more difficult, emergency response became an increasing part of her work. Families were facing displacement, disrupted livelihoods and repeated insecurity. Aseel drew on her training in psychosocial support, child protection, case management, emergency response and displacement-camp management to respond to needs that were changing quickly.

The work also brought personal risk. Aseel says she was stopped by Israeli forces on more than one occasion, and in one incident her car came under gunfire while she was delivering assistance. The experience made the dangers of field work immediate. “Courage is not pretending that danger does not exist,” she says. “It is dealing with it consciously and finding, as much as possible, the safest way to continue.”

Her family, particularly her mother, has been a central source of support. During moments of exhaustion, they reminded her not to judge her whole journey by one difficult moment. That support helped her continue building a path that combines community work, academic study and public service.

Aseel does not define leadership by titles. For her, leadership means working alongside the team, listening before deciding, and being present when circumstances become difficult. “Leadership means being at the front of responsibility, not at the front of the picture,” she says.

She also wants young women to see that they do not have to confine themselves to one identity or one path. Messages from university students and young women who tell her, “You are our role model,” have made her more aware that her journey can open possibilities for others. She wants people to see Palestinian women not only through hardship, but as students, researchers, mothers, workers, officers, managers, leaders and volunteers.

Looking ahead, Aseel hopes to complete her doctorate and expand sustainable psychosocial and empowerment programmes for women and children affected by displacement and crisis. If she had to choose one place that captures her story, it would be Jenin — the city where she studied, volunteered, worked, and learned what community service means in practice.

From the volunteer she once was to the officer, association director and doctoral researcher she is today, Aseel measures progress less by the positions she has reached than by the impact those positions allow her to have. “I do not want my journey to be measured by the positions I have reached,” she says, “but by the people whose lives I was able to touch, even in a small way.”