About the Course
The Centre for Environmental Rights’ Activist Support & Training Programme has hosted the annual Rights & Remedies Course for Activists since 2017.
Rights & Remedies is a transformative legal advocacy course designed to capacitate participants from communities around South Africa who experience environmental injustices. Over three intensive weeks, Rights & Remedies provides practical legal and advocacy training and tools to activists with a focus on the Constitution and broader environmental legal regime. The course empowers committed and passionate community activists with the knowledge, network and practical legal tools our constitutional democracy offers to make a real difference in their communities upon completion of the course.
R&R focuses on practical training outcomes to provide participants with a range of skills to facilitate engagement with government and industry, including the use of statutory remedies (for example writing complaint and objection letters, reporting environmental violations, and using access to information laws). The course includes practical sessions on topics ranging from climate change, the just transition, air quality, mining and the environment and the use of media, to effective presentation skills, organisational strengthening and water justice advocacy strategies.
Participants of the course join the Rights & Remedies Alumni Network, a platform designed to bring together and support the work of alumni, facilitate communication and networking, provide mentorship opportunities, monitor and support alumni projects in the fields of mining and environmental justice, organise events and workshops and advocate for the interests of R&R alumni and the broader environmental and climate justice movement.
Since 2017, over 100 activists have graduated from the Rights & Remedies course.