University of Arizona Human Rights Panama May 2014

Start Date: Jun 1, 2014 12:00 AM
End Date: Jun 7, 2014 12:00 AM

The mission of Human Rights Brigades is to empower rural communities in Panama to overcome the obstacles that often impede the fundamental human right of access to justice through legal counsel and educational workshops. Human Rights Brigades volunteers have the opportunity to gain first-hand experience working directly with Panamanian lawyers to provide pro-bono legal consulting to rural communities. Volunteers will shadow and assist lawyers as they take on cases with individual families and provide legal consulting to community members. By mobilizing student volunteers to connect with these communities on a family-by-family basis, brigades develop sustainable legal support systems in the region while decreasing the number of unresolved legal cases over time. Human Rights Brigades primarily works with rural communities that are under resourced and largely unaware of their own legal rights. Additionally, volunteers provide legal capacity building workshops on various legal concepts to empower communities through education and action. Human Rights Brigades also works to establish and train community action groups, whose aim is to serve and identify the legal needs of the community and to host workshops on fundamental rights while Global Brigades is not present in the community. Between brigades, Global Brigades’ in-country staff works to secure legal outcomes and provide follow-up to the families and community groups.