Final report : legal assistance and human rights awareness programme

The USAID grant enabled Haguruka to complete its training and awareness raising program in Gikongoro province and to support 50% of the training given in Cyangugu province. The grant also funded nearly half the costs associated with the training of new paralegals. A no-cost extension (8/01-12/01) allowed Haguruka to train the local representatives of gender, youth, and social affairs, as well as to purchase two new photocopiers. Proposed targets and results for the project compare favorably, though Trocaire will have to help Haguruka work on their indicators to measure impact. The additional training under the no-cost extension will help safeguard the progress of the project, especially in cementing relations with the relevant authorities at the grass roots. The lessons and constraints of the USAID project have been taken into account in current Haguruka activities. Legal assistance has become far more effective through the mobile legal clinic used in following up case files. This is resulting in a much higher percentage resolution. Paralegals are also more motivated due to the increased support in the field. The potential noted during the project period is being built on. The Human Rights Clubs in schools follows on from the highly successful training/awareness raising given in secondary schools, funded by USAID. Continuing liaison with the authorities, strengthened by the USAID funding for training new local representatives, is important, as so much of the work of both suboffice personnel and paralegals amounts to local-level advocacy with the authorities and other agencies like Caritas. This will increasingly be devolved to the newly elected local representatives of youth, women, and social affairs, so that they can play the same role, always with legal advice/back-up from Haguruka. As a result, in the future Haguruka will be able to focus on providing free legal advice and representation, leaving the awareness raising that creates the demand to other actors with a more permanent presence at a local level. Haguruka"s model of deliberately blurring the interface between a human rights-oriented civil society organization and the government is realistic and prudent in the current political climate, and its effectiveness has been validated by the results of awareness raising, in practical collaboration on the ground, and in the higher-level advocacy Haguruka is able to pursue at the government policy level, e.g., its involvement in drafting and promoting the new succession/inheritance law. It is hoped that Haguruka"s latest campaign, advocating for the legal recognition of common-law marriage rights, will also be successful. The new law on inheritance that Haguruka advocated has made awareness raising and legal advice all the more pertinent and relevant. The experience of receiving and solving real problems at various levels has helped Haguruka understand the issues and improve the quality of its lobbying and the counsel it offers the government. It also helps raise Haguruka"s credibility with the government on the issues, and leaves it perfectly placed for following up the new law with its customary combination of awareness raising and practical assistance. This is equally true of Haguruka"s desire to promote and protect the role of women during the Gacaca proceedings [a grassroots form of participatory justice and reconciliation that has become the government"s primary forum for adjudicating genocide cases]; awareness on Gacaca was introduced into the training supported by USAID. That the demands for legal assistance are verified, and disputes first solved as locally as possible means that the overall efficiency of the overstretched justice system is improved. The level of unnecessary demands on jurisdictions will be reduced through a better informed public and a better informed local civil service.