Knowledge is power on Mandela Day: CER starts rolling out series of environmental rights training workshops for mining-affected communities
18 July 2015 at 9:36 am
CER lawyers Sylvia Kamanja and Matome Kapa preparing for environmental rights training workshops starting today.
On Saturday, 18 July 2015, Centre for Environmental Rights lawyers were in Burgersfort, Limpopo at the start of a series of training workshops on environmental rights and remedies in mining-affected communities across the country.
This workshop series is undertaken in collaboration with the Mining and Environmental Justice Community Network of South Africa, and will also facilitate opportunities for different mining-affected communities and activists to share their experiences in defending environmental rights threatened by mining.
The training will aim to empower communities to assert and defend their rights to an environment not harmful to their health and well-being, including rights to participate in decisions about mining in their community. The training also covers communities’ rights to information and records required to exercise their environmental rights, including environmental management programmes, social and labour plans, and compliance data.
After Burgersfort, CER lawyers travel to Riverlea in Johannesburg, and Madadeni in eastern Mpumalanga in this first leg of the workshop series.
The workshops are funded by the Multi-Agency Grant Initiative and Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide.
For more information about the workshops, email Matome Kapa at [email protected] or call 021 447 1647.