Community Legal Education & Community Development

Overview

The Illawarra Legal Centre maintains a strong commitment to community legal education and community development as part of its overall social justice strategy. The Centre’s approach is a strategic linking of casework with community legal education and law and policy reform work. Community development enables community members to be better informed, to have an effective voice and to seek solutions for the issues affecting their life.

What is Community Legal Education?

Community Legal Education (CLE) aims to:

Raise community awareness about the law and legal processes;

Increase the ability of community members to understand and critically assess the impact of the law and the legal system;

Improve community members’ ability to participate in the legal system;

Create a climate that promotes participation in the law-making process and inspires efforts to pursue law reform through collective action.

How is Community Legal Education (CLE) undertaken?

CLE can be undertaken in a number of ways:

through workshops, lectures and presentations;

using information kits, pamphlets and multimedia CDs;

broadcasting on community radio

publications in newspapers or magazines

by discussion, film, theatre and games that facilitate learning.

What are the benefits of Community Legal Education?

CLE provides information and opportunities to ask questions, share ideas and develop strategies that may address gaps in the legal system.

Learning about various legal processes may assist someone find a solution to a legal problem before it becomes difficult, complicated and possibly expensive.

CLE can influence law reform work and make broad systemic change.

Do you need to know more about the law?

The Illawarra Legal Centre can design Community Legal Education workshops specifically to suit the needs of community organisations, community groups and the general public. We can provide workshops tailored to the needs of your community organisation or client group at a venue to suit you. Please let us know of special requirements such as interpreters.

To request a workshop, simply download the CLE request form and fax it to our office on 42761978. Generally, the Centre requires 4 weeks notice from any group seeking a Community Legal Education workshop.

To discuss a tailored workshop, a series of workshops, or for more information contact our Community Legal Education Worker phone 4276 1939.

Some ideas for Community Legal Education workshops:

General law

Discrimination. A guide for community workers about the types of unlawful discrimination and potential remedies, eg discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, HIV status or carer's responsibilities.

I will survive! Victims Compensation, a guide for community workers or clients.

Domestic Violence & Apprehended Violence Orders, an overview of the legislation, court processes and interaction with family law.

Better safe than sorry! A general guide to making wills, power of attorney, enduring guardianship and “living wills”.

Changes to Child Support Legislation.

Unfair dismissals & employee rights.

Responsibilities of community workers.

Youth Law.

Welfare rights

Welfare rights. Problems associated with Centrelink.

Child support & Family Tax Benefit. An overview for community workers including how child support payments affect Family Tax Benefit.

Information on Centrelink

Welfare to Work - changes to Social Security Law. What you need to know.

Credit & Debt

Bankruptcy

Debt collection

Credit cards

Consumer complaints & dispute resolution schemes

Tenancy

For community workers:

Tenants' rights & how to use the CTTT (Consumer, Trader & Tenancy Tribunal).

For tenants:

Rights and remedies – a workshop on tenants rights and resolving issues with landlords.

For residents, community workers, or both:

Rights and remedies – residential parks.

Innovative Community Legal Education and Community Development projects

Students Learning How To Start Out Right

Start Out Right (SOR) is a program in local high schools organised by the Illawarra Legal Centre and Legal Aid Wollongong. It informs young people about their rights and responsibilities around legal contracts, debt and buying expensive items such as cars.

How to handle a pressuring salesperson? What to do about a rapidly growing debt? What to be aware of when signing a contract? Where to get free legal advice? These are just some of the questions answered in Start Out Right sessions.

Through interactive workshops, the Start Out Right project helps young people focus on some of the common issues they face when they leave school. The workshops discuss the legal rights and responsibilities of young people and other parties that they interact with such as landlords, sellers, insurance companies and even flatmates! Each workshop includes quizzes, problems to solve and multimedia presentations.

Start Out Right (SOR) was initiated by the Illawarra Youth Justice Network and was coordinated through the Illawarra Legal Centre with the support of Wollongong Youth Services and Legal Aid NSW during 2003 to 2005. The Start Out Right initiative won the 2004 NSW Consumer Protection Award. SOR continues during 2009 in a scaled down version with workers from the ILC and Wollongong LAC.

Anti-Poverty Week and public scribes

At the 2008 Anti-Poverty Week having your say was made easy by scribes recording public concerns to send to relevant politicians, media and other decision makers. On the steps of the Wesley Church on the Mall in Wollongong, letter writers documented the issues that keep people in poverty.

Poverty is much more than struggling to keep the roof over your head and food on the table. Poverty is also living without access to information, opportunities and social interaction that enriches your life and sustains your wellbeing. Citizens struggle with TAFE fees, worry about needing respite from their carer role, live in pain because they can’t afford a dentist and are socially isolated as their money goes on absolute essentials.

“Yes I have things I want to say and I’m happy to have a chance to say them”.

More than 150 people wrote letters with help from the scribes if needed. Some said they just wanted to talk a bit first about their issue then put pen to paper. Others read the prepared letters on various issues and if they represented their concerns, they signed them and put them in the stamped envelopes and sent them off.

These were the main topics of the day:

Housing, namely lack of affordability, Department of Housing issues, and lack of access to affordable housing came up often.

Centrelink issues, namely, penalties, lack of access for students, pension payments, lack of employment and non payment problems arose throughout the day.

Health and dental care were major concerns, particularly mental health, lack of support for those with ongoing serious health issues, poor hospitals, tax cuts instead of health infrastructure were a focus by many.

The majority of other issues were about the need for a fairer Australia and anti-poverty strategies to ensure that basic needs are met for all.

Feedback

A young man with an unfair dismissal matter went to the South Coast Labour Council and got to speak with someone and organise an appointment for the next workday. He came back to say thanks.

Another young man sat and talked about his life living with an acute mental illness. He wrote some letters about the need for more mental health care services and said he felt listened to and would pursue other options for support.

A retired woman who caught the bus in to have her say after hearing about it on the radio said as she was leaving, “ this is good, it feels a bit like democracy”

Legal theatre

A Legal Theatre performance in 2005 – in cooperation with Illawarra Multicultural Services - addressed the legal issues of credit and debt, Centrelink and tenancy for the newly arrived African community members of the Illawarra.

“I really enjoyed the time of discussion and I want it to continue more and more because it will help us to know what we are to do.”

Legal Theatre, African participant 2005

In 2007 and 2008 Legal Theatre performances focussed on issues about tenancy. Local professional actors performed short theatre pieces and then used 'forum theatre' to initiate discussion. More than 60 audience members participated in the performance using the interactive medium to find solutions to tenancy problems.

Legal Theatre is a successful way of promoting learning with groups from a variety of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

From forum theatre came “Monologues” - a medium which provides more “detail” about people’s lives and what makes their situation real, understandable and in a context that most of us know in some way or another.

The intention behind the “Monologues” was to let people know what we did in our jobs in a way that was a little easier to relate to and understand the complexity of the lives of those who seek to use community legal services. It is the detail of any person’s life that reminds us that they have needs, rights and entitlements.

“Monologues” can remind all of us that those we work with are more than a statistic in the system.

More information about Legal Theatre can be found at:

'Legal theatre': a theatre based approach to community legal education, Jaclyn Booton & Paul Dwyer, Department of Performance Studies, University of Sydney, 2005, 125p. [Book] [NSW]

PhotoVoice: a Regional Community Development Project

In the first PhotoVoice project in the Illawarra, the Illawarra Legal Centre worked with 40 Muslim families who took photos with disposable cameras to record and reflect on the community’s strengths and concerns. This action research project captured the beliefs, fears, struggles and celebration in this community. The photos were a starting point for discussions involving legal and non legal topics.

The PhotoVoice project enabled Muslim families to record and reflect their community's strengths and problems. It promoted a dialogue about important issues through group discussion and photographs. It also engaged policymakers to be better informed about the community.

Through this project, members of the Muslim community, particularly women, examined such issues as workplace discrimination, domestic violence, anti-terrorism laws, concerns with dealing with police and related legal issues. In this process they gained a better knowledge about legal services as well as a sense of having more control over some of the issues.

The exhibition of photos - Past, Present & Future - was launched int International Human Rights Day 2005 activities.

Feedback about the PhotoVoice project included:

“There is so much negativity around Muslims today due to recent world events. It’s great for the public to be able to see the concerns that face the Muslim community”.

“The PhotoVoice project was a good opportunity for participating families to share with the wider community that Muslims are as Australian as anyone else, with strength and weakness that shows our humanity. This is a great project.”

“At a time when Muslim communities are feeling marginalised and discriminated against this is an opportunity to celebrate the life of Muslim communities living in Australia. The PhotoVoice project has been a great starting point to discuss legal and non legal issues that Muslim families in the Illawarra region are facing, including discrimination and victimisation. The project has also given participants the opportunity to gain photography skills by working with a local community artist”.

More information about PhotoVoice available at: