SOUTHERN AFRICAN LEGAL ASSISTANT NETWORK

ZCEA has been a member of SALAN since its formation in 1994. SALAN is a network of 11 non-profit non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the SADC region. The membership currently comprises Black Sash-South Africa; DITSHWANELO-The Botswana Centre for Human Rights; Centre for Advice, Research and Education on Rights (CARER)-Malawi; Liga Mocambique Dos Direitos Humanos (LDH); Legal Assistance Centre (LAC)-Namibia; Legal Resources Centre (LRC)-South Africa; Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC)-Tanzania; Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA); Legal Resources Foundation (LRF)-Zambia; Zanzibar Legal Services Centre (ZLSC) and Legal Resources Foundation-Zimbabwe.

The Network was created by the founding organisations upon realising that they shared common objectives, faced common challenges and saw the Network as a mechanism to encourage dialogue and the sharing of information on human rights and on matters of public interest in law and other related issues in the SADC region.

SALAN’s founding principles are the upholding of human rights and the rule of law. Over the past 16 years, SALAN has continuously endeavoured to design regional interventions to ensure access to justice to low-income citizens in terms of free legal representation. The incidence of human rights violations in the region is still very high and the majority of the underprivileged are not able to access justice owing to prohibitive legal costs.  Over the years, SALAN has undertaken regional advocacy work and shared information amongst its members, governments and non state agencies. 

In 2009 SALAN held its annual meeting from the 25 to the 27th of May in Windhoek, Namibia. The meeting was hosted by Legal Assistance Centre (LAC). The meeting followed the usual agenda of country reports on political, social and economic trends in each of the member countries. The country reports are followed with project reports. SALAN undertakes regional projects on human rights issues. ZCEA coordinated the Socio-Economic Project which advocates for the implementation of social economic rights. The main activity for 2009 was a situational analysis of the right to food in the SADC region whose report was launched at the same meeting in Windhoek. After the launch of the report ZCEA handed the leadership of the Socio Economic Rights Project to Black Sash. SALAN went through a process of regrouping into regional project groups following the formation of the new Strategic Plan for 2009 to 2012. ZCEA is now part of the Child Rights Project together with LRF-Zimbabwe and ZLSC and also part of the Paralegalism Project together with ZLSC- Zanzibar, DITSHWANELO- Botswana, LAC-Namibia, ZCEA- Zambia, CARER- Malawi and LDH-Mozambique.

ZCEA intends to play an active role in the implementation of the new SALAN Strategic Plan. It is currently part of the Secretariat of SALAN which is hosted by LRF –Zambia. Learn more about SALAN http://www.salan.org