STREET LAW

The Street Law Programme was re-launched at UWC in 2009 upon the initiative of a few UWC students in conjunction with the UWC Law Clinic, and in association with the Students for Law and Social Justice (SLSJ). The Clinic re-introduced the Street Law Programme on campus as part of the Clinical Legal Education Programme of the Clinic, and the Street Law Programme is conducted on a voluntary basis by law students. Street Law is designed to introduce the law and human rights to people of all levels of education, providing a practical understanding of the law, the legal system and the Constitution to all learners. The project is primarily focussed on teaching youth – particularly from marginalised communities in the Western Cape, about human rights and the way in which the law operates in protecting these rights.

The Street Law Programme is based on the understanding that the Constitution and the law play a critical role in the process of social transformation and that the only way in which this role can be fully realised is if it is made accessible to people and communities most desperately in need of progressive social change. Lawyers, and by implication law students, are important agents in this process, and there is a need for more opportunities to be created for law students to use their training and skills in a manner that assists poor and marginalised people in society. By creating such opportunities, not only does it provide access to useful information and access to the law to the broader community, it also assists in creating more socially conscious lawyers who have gained broader experience while working with and supporting communities, thus benefiting both communities and law students (and as a result having a positive impact on the legal practice as a whole).

We recognise that due to the technical nature of the law, the fact that many indigent people often lack access to basic services such as decent education, and for high school learners who have had little contact with the law, being taught about the law may be a challenging and intimidating experience. This is why the Street Law lessons and activities are specifically formulated in a way that is easily accessible to persons with little or low levels of educational experience, by presenting lessons through practical and relevant examples that allow participants and learners to grasp concepts that they are able to relate to in their everyday lives. The lessons and activities are also structured in a way that gives a strong focus to the values inherent in the legal system to promote an understanding of the law within its social context and in a manner that is able to simultaneously promote a culture of respect and understanding of human rights.

Students, who have been trained, are under the supervision of a Street Law coordinator who facilitates the lessons at schools and other places of safety. The lessons are run as extra-curricular activities after school hours which are run on a voluntary basis (on the part of both the law students and the school learners).

Apart from the lessons to be conducted at the schools, we also plan, on occasion, to take learners on educational excursions during the course of the programme. This will include, for example: tours of the courts, police stations as well as the UWC campus.

The main way in which the Street Law Programme seeks to give effect to these aims is by running lessons in high schools – situated in disadvantaged communities, where learners are taught about the Constitution, human rights, democracy and the law in general. These lessons constitute the main activities of the programme, however, in view of having as great an impact on the widest audience as possible, other more short-term activities have been run over the past 6 months. The Street Law Project is a student-led initiative, under the guidance of the Law Clinic.

The Street Law Project is, as noted, currently being managed by the Clinic. Resources and capacity are sourced from the Clinic via our existing funding streams. The Clinic does not have a dedicated donor/funder sponsoring the Street Law activities. The Clinic uses the services of one of our attorneys as a part-time coordinator and it has appointed two student assistants to assist with the Street Law project.

The Street Law volunteers visited the following facilities on a weekly basis during the second semester of 2019, whereby they either conducted an information workshop or advice desks during their visit at the facilities:

· Bonnytoun Youth Care Centre;

· Vredelus Youth Care Centre;

· Saartjie Baartman Women and Children’s Home;

· Eben Donges High School.

(See attached hereto a letter from Vredelus & Bonnytoun Child and Youth Care Centres, confirming Street Law’s attendance and their engagement with the residents, marked as Annexure ‘LC2’)

The following table is an attachment which highlights the organisations visited last year (2019) during the second semester, by the street law students.