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Partnerships

RRRT recognises the value of partnerships and is committed to strengthening old ties and building new relationships. We support the human rights work of national partners through capacity building initiatives, project support and financial, strategic and technical support designed to increase the impact of their work. 
 
Legal Rights Training Officers (LRTOs)
RRRT has established national partners permanently based in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. These partners host Legal Rights Training Officers (LRTOs) trained, mentored and sometimes funded by RRRT.

LRTOs play a dual role of educating the marginalised (the community) to act and the powerful (State agencies) to comply with and adhere to human rights. They monitor and advocate for better conditions for which people can achieve their rights. LRTOs
conduct community-level workshops, undertake public awareness programmes and play an active role in local and national policy dialogue. They also provide counselling, advisory, referral and information services on human and legal rights.
 
Community Paralegals (CPs)
RRRT works with and assists the largest network of community-level human rights activists and advocates in the Pacific Island region. During the life of our project we have trained over 300 Community Paralegals in Fiji, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

These CPs are highly committed to human rights and improving social justice. In very real ways they use human rights to help the poor, excluded or marginalised in their communities - they conduct training, lobby, mount campaigns, advocate on rights-related issues and mobilise support. They play a dual role in not only raising issues about human rights, but are also monitors of human rights violations at local level.
 
Our network of CPs are located far and wide, in both urban and rural areas - with an emphasis on the rural. In Vanuatu, CPs are based on Tanna, Erromango, Efate, Epi, Ambrym, Malekula, Ambae, Pentecost, Santo and the remote islands of the Banks & Torres thanks to programmes run in partnership with the Vanuatu Rural Development and Training Centres’ Association and the Vanuatu National Council of Women.

For RRRT, our partners are the cornerstone of our work. This strategy outlines the type of partnerships we enter into and defines the clear roles and responsibilities of partnering, to the mutual benefit of all.
 
 
Human rights capacity building has assisted the plight of the marginalised and excluded in countless and varied ways.
 
In Solomon Islands, after recent programmes held in partnership with the Women’s Development Division, the Ministry for Youth and the Solomon Islands National Teachers’ Association, CPs can now be found in every province in the country, including Ysabel, Makira, Malaita and the remote Temotu islands. While each country has an informal network of CPs, in the Solomons they have formed the East Honiara CP Association. As there are over 70 CPs in Solomon Islands alone, refresher courses are our current focus - the first of a series being jointly coordinated with UNIFEM Pacific in July, 2005.

RRRT has also recently trained, or is currently training, about 100 more CPs in Kiribati (in partnership with the Kiribati Ministry of Internal and Social Affairs), Vanuatu (with the Vanuatu National Youth Council) and Tonga (with the Catholic Women’s League). CP candidates, identified from civil society leaders and government field officers, undergo our six-week, comprehensive human rights Community Paralegal Training programme.