The ecologically unique but fragile Mundra region in the western Indian state of Gujarat has seen ferocious industrial expansion over the last decade and a half. A range of multipurpose ports, coal-handling facilities and thermal power plants have been granted approval under various environment regulations and built.
This report from Namati, produced in partnership with Mundra Hitrakshak Manch (Forum for the Protection of Rights in Mundra), MASS and Ujjas Mahila Sangathan, shows that the enforcement of these regulations has been woefully inadequate.
This manual is intended for use by people training community paralegals across Pakistan. The course will enhance both community paralegals’ skills and legal knowledge, thereby providing a better quality and uniform standard of service to poor and vulnerable communities.
This course has been designed to include a number of themes, which have been broken down into training modules. The entire course could be taught over five or six sessions of four to five days each.
The authors envision, however, that trainers will select particular parts of the course depending on the legal problems most frequently occurring in a particular community, as well as the skills needed by the paralegals they are training. The authors envision that the manual itself will also be useful for community based paralegals, as well as their mentors and supervisors, to keep and use as a reference.
The manual is divided into two books. Here is a link for Pakistan’s National Community Paralegal Training Manual Book 1.
This manual is intended for use by people training community paralegals across Pakistan. The course will enhance both community paralegals’ skills and legal knowledge, thereby providing a better quality and uniform standard of service to poor and vulnerable communities.
This course has been designed to include a number of themes, which have been broken down into training modules. The entire course could be taught over five or six sessions of four to five days each.
The authors envision, however, that trainers will select particular parts of the course depending on the legal problems most frequently occurring in a particular community, as well as the skills needed by the paralegals they are training. The authors envision that the manual itself will also be useful for community based paralegals, as well as their mentors and supervisors, to keep and use as a reference.
The manual is divided into two books. Here is a link for Pakistan’s National Community Paralegal Training Manual Book 2.
A chapter from the Guide that introduces a method for increasing a community’s sense of ownership over the community land protection process and improving accountability between a community and an implementing organization.
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This resource is one chapter from Namati’s Community Land Protection Facilitators Guide, which can be accessed here. To view all the individual chapters and supporting resources, refer to the interactive online version of the Community Land Protection Facilitators Guide here.
This resource is part of a Namati Documentation Guide that aims to assist legal empowerment organizations in documenting their work. There are three parts to this Documentation Guide: Story Writing, Case Studies, and Basic Photography.
Using pictures is a wonderful way to tell stories and to help your audience connect with the subject of your story! People are more likely to read your words when they’re accompanied by a nice picture or picture story too, so it’s a useful skill to practice too.
Se supone que la ley es un hilo sagrado que nos une y protege a cada uno de nosotros. Pero para miles de millones de personas en todo el mundo la ley se ha roto. Es una abstracción, o peor, una amenaza, pero no algo que podemos usar para ejercer nuestros derechos básicos.
Namati está construyendo un movimiento global de defensores legales de base que dan a la gente el poder de entender, usar y dar forma a la ley. Estos defensores forman una línea de frente dinámica y creativa que puede exprimir la justicia de incluso los sistemas rotos.
Los defensores legales del empoderamiento tratan a sus clientes como ciudadanos más capacitados que a las víctimas que requieren un servicio experto. En lugar de “Voy a resolver este problema para usted”, nuestro mensaje es: “Vamos a resolver esto juntos, y usted se hará más fuerte en el proceso.”
Namati y sus socios despliegan abogados legales de base para asumir algunos de los mayores desafíos de nuestros tiempos:
Namati convoca la red global de empoderamiento legal, que está compuesta por más de 1.000 grupos de todo el mundo. Estamos aprendiendo unos de otros y trabajando juntos para traer justicia en todas partes. Únase a nuestra red.
Rastreamos datos en todos los casos y, junto con nuestros clientes, utilizamos esa información para abogar por cambios sistémicos, como mejores políticas de gobernanza de la tierra en Liberia, regulación ambiental en la India y prestación de servicios de salud en Mozambique. Ver nuestros recursos
Desplácese por nuestros Valores Culturales para aprender más sobre la forma en que operamos.
Since 1997 the Centre for Community Justice & Development (CCJD) has been running a community-based paralegal (CBP’s) service for the rural and marginalized people of the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal.
A pilot impact study of the work of the paralegals was undertaken in 2006. In order to refine this, an impact research study was carried out from 2008 to 2012 to coincide with and complement the comprehensive review of the outreach programme, spanning the fifteen years of operation, 1997-2012
This report is published as part of the Community-Based Access to Justice Series which focuses on different aspects of the work of community-based paralegals to make justice accessible to people at the grass-roots level.
Objectives of the Impact Study
Within the broader evaluation framework, the objectives of the impact study were:
The central question that underlies impact can be stated as: has the community based- paralegal programme made a substantial difference in the lives of the beneficiaries, directly and indirectly?
The specific research protocol identified five priority areas of impact. These are:
Each of these five priority areas is explained in detail below. These themes form the backbone of this report, and wider issues contained in the broad objectives will be further elaborated in other sections of this document.
Kampala, Uganda – Global Rights, Namati, and Open Society Justice Initiative will hold a three-day workshop on July 9-11, 2012 for community-based paralegal programs from across sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop brings together representatives of nearly 50 community-based paralegal programs from over 20 countries. Participants will explore and compare the role of paralegals in national legal aid policies; innovative strategies for addressing common challenges such as gender- based violence, conflicts over land and natural resources, and accountability of basic services; and operational issues such as methods for paralegal training and evaluating impact.
“Paralegals are critically important for making justice accessible in Africa,” says Mary Wyckoff, Global Rights’ Director of Programs, who oversees Global Rights’ paralegal capacity-building programs in northern Nigeria and western Uganda. “With limited numbers of lawyers in many African countries, and fewer still outside of urban areas, community-based paralegals help to fill the justice gap. They raise awareness in their communities and provide services like legal counseling, mediation, and court accompaniment.”
Uganda’s Chief Justice, the Honorable Benjamin Joseph Odoki, will open the workshop with a keynote speech on the importance of paralegals in national legal aid policy.“We are privileged to have the Honorable Justice Odoki make opening remarks,” says Donald Rukare, Global Rights’ Uganda Country Director. “Chief Justice Odoki has been a staunch supporter of making a place for paralegals in the currently proposed national legal aid policy and law in Uganda.”
The workshop’s comparative approach will enable participants to look across borders and learn from other leaders in the field. Participants from Sierra Leone, for instance, will discuss the advocacy approach that pushed a landmark legal aid law through Parliament in May 2012; the law endorsed paralegals as providers of legal aid services. National paralegal networks from Kenya and South Africa will discuss the role of institutional partnerships and coordination in scaling up paralegal services. Participants from Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will analyze paralegals’ efforts to work with local communities to demand accountability from large companies in the extractives industry, as well as government service providers.
“This workshop marks the first time that so many leaders from paralegal programs across Africa will be coming together to reflect on existing experience, debate collective goals, and explore new and meaningful directions for the region’s paralegal efforts,” notes Abigail Moy, Namati’s Program Director for the Global Legal Empowerment Network, an international community of grassroots justice organizations. “The event represents an important step towards the cultivation of a stronger, broader movement for community-based paralegals and legal empowerment as a whole.”
Read more coverage on the the event in New Vision (Uganda).
Community Land Action Now! (CLAN!) is a national network of indigenous peoples and local community-support organizations in Kenya advocating for secure land tenure rights, strengthening governance systems, and promoting sustainable land and natural resource management.
Since its inception, CLAN! has experienced significant growth, expanding from a small group of founding members to a diverse network of 85 members, including 54 Indigenous communities and 31 local community-support organizations across 21 counties in Kenya.
As an unregistered, loose network, CLAN! relies on grant holder organizations to manage project funds. Presently, the Chepkitale Indigenous People Development Project (CIPDP), a registered Kenyan NGO, serves as the grant holder for CLAN! Network. Our Strategic Objectives 1) Support Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to register and secure their community lands under the Community Land Act (2016). 2)Advocate for fair and transparent investment frameworks that ensure equitable benefit-sharing. 3) Influence policy and legal reforms to strengthen community land rights at county and national levels. 4) Strengthen community-led climate action, integrating Indigenous knowledge systems.
5) Empower women and youth to actively participate and benefit from land rights and resource management. 6) Coordinate humanitarian support during droughts, conflicts, and other emergencies. Our thematic areas; registration of community lands, responsible investment on community land, conservation and climate change, Gender & Youth Inclusion, Legal, Policy and Advocacy, Livelihood and Humanitarian Support. Vision: A just and sustainable future where IPLCs in Kenya enjoy secure land rights, resilient governance systems, and equitable stewardship of their natural resources. Mission: To strengthen solidarity and collective action among IP&LCs by sharing knowledge, building capacity, and supporting efforts to secure community lands and protect natural resources.