Founded by Siobhan Nash-Marshall and Rita Mahdessian in Glendale, California in 2014, the Christians In Need Foundation (CINF) was a response to the horrors inflicted upon Christians in the Middle East and the Caucasus. By November of the same year, CINF arranged for eight Syrian Christians to study in the United States. Its intent was to aid in the preservation of the cultures of the communities to which the students belonged and to provide an American education to the students. When the program was set to launch, all eight student visas were denied.

In 2015 CINF decided to reverse its course and send teachers abroad to live and work with Christian communities in the Middle East and Caucasus. In the Summer of 2015, and in response to a request for help, CINF sent its first volunteer teacher, a fresh college graduate, to Tashir, Armenia to teach English to 150 children at the Diramayr Hayastani Ketron summer camp. While living in Tashir, the volunteer came to know the community, its virtues, and its particular needs. She also developed important skills: leadership, communication, organization, and cooperation.

The 2015 experience became the model for CINF’s work. Through it, the Board realized that is meant to serve both Christians in the Middle East and the Caucasus and Western Christians: that sending Westerners to live in the Caucasus meant strengthening both the Westerners and the communities in which they live and work. This decision became a defining characteristic of CINF’s work.

In the Summer of 2017, CINF sent two project leaders to Artsakh from the United States to teach English, Logic, and Ethics. Their results were remarkable and confirmed CINF’s path. After that summer, the Board of CINF decided to concentrate the bulk of its international efforts in Artsakh. The extraordinary people and land of that ancient Christian enclave make it an ideal home for a deep and fruitful relationship between Eastern and Western Christians.

In 2019, Italian volunteers joined the American team at work in Artsakh.

In 2021, CINF founded the Antonia Arslan Armenian-Italian Hamalir.

By working directly with the communities it serves, CINF ensures a mutual exchange between its volunteers from around the world and its partners from within the community. This provides CINF, through its volunteers on the ground, first-hand knowledge of the unique challenges each community faces. Based on this understanding, CINF prepares programs tailored to meet these challenges. CINF then partners with the community, through government, schools, and the everyday citizen, to see these plans successfully executed and developed. Through working with the community, CINF ensures Middle and Near Eastern Christians are prepared to face their own challenges, in the present and the future. Because of this focus upon teamwork, CINF delivers effective and long-term solutions to the problems that threaten Middle Eastern and Near Eastern Christians.