Education & Training

The community legal education and training project provides tools for educating Rwandan people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS, about their basic legal rights around health care and HIV to empower them to take action to resolve legal problems they may face. In summer 2006, WE-ACTx held an eight-week legal education program for the leaders of its grassroots partner organizations at the Icyuzuzo Clinic in Kigali. The trainees formed Dufatanye (Rwanda Community Law Anti-Discrimination Network), to support their efforts in community legal education, conflict resolution, and advocacy for Rwandans living with HIV/AIDS. Rwandan law graduates helped to design and implement these trainings and have since been working with Rwandan and WE-ACTx affiliated pro-bono law experts in the US to prepare community legal education handbook on HIV/AIDS and the law in Rwanda. The handbook serves as the basis for training grassroots groups, trauma counselors, clinicians and law students in Rwanda, bringing concrete Rwandan HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination and health care law and policy to people with HIV/AIDS, the Rwandan legal and human rights community, and to clinicians involved with AIDS care and treatment. The handbook was completed in fall of 2007 and has received approval of various Rwandan government HIV/AIDS and health entities. It includes special emphasis on pregnancy-related care and addresses gender-based violence, both of which are critical issues in Rwanda. It addresses both international health and human rights law, and most importantly, Rwandan constitutional law, and is currently being translated in the local language, Kinyarwanda. While the handbook and training curriculum includes a chapter on children’s issues under Rwandan law, a separate and more detailed companion handbook on children’s issues under Rwandan law is in the early stages of preparation.

With initial seed funding from the Stephen Lewis Foundation, private donors, and recent support from the Human Rights and Democracy Fund of the US embassy in Rwanda for translation of the Legal Handbook into the local language and further trainings in the country, we are building on the solid foundation of WE-ACTx’s primary health care services to help Rwandans address sexual and other forms of violence against women and children and remove barriers to health care access in Rwanda.

Handbooks

Know Your Rights! A Community Handbook on Health-Care Rights and Other Laws
(Download PDF documents below)

• English
• Kinyarwanda