ASF/LWB Working Group
A group of like-minded colleagues involved in transnational legal activism have formed to start the Ontario ‘chapter’ of Avocats sans frontieres/Abogados sin frontierras/Lawyers without borders.
This is the Quebec office, which is currently the only office in Canada Link.
Our Toronto group meets regularly to conduct ASF business, including fundraising, developing profiles for issues we are working on, and developing new missions or projects. If you are interested in our work, please contact me.
We are currently fairly active in three projects: Nigeria, Haiti and Colombia. I am doing work with the Colombia group: Link. (We will have the French website translated this fall and be able to refer you to links there.)
There, we partner with a couple of NGO partner called “Colectivo de abogados José Alverear Restrepo” (CAJAR) and Asociación colombiana de abogados defensores Eduardo Umaña Mendoza” (ACADEUM). The first is an association of HR lawyers, and the second an association of defence lawyers.
Our work is to provide funds, support (moral, logistical, informational) and do our best to figure out ways to help lawyers doing HR, labour or similar work organize themselves and stay alive.
UPDATE: tentative visit of Alirio Uribe October 6-20, 2007.
Alirio is the PResident of CAJAR, and planning a trip here to do some fundraising and friend-raising. Here is some basic information about Alirio.
He’s won some pretty decent awards. Link.
He’s not always been popular with the local authorities and lack of authorities, such as they are. Link.
More on this in postings as events warrant.