Press-release
On 6 May 2014, in Lviv there was held a Coordination meeting of non-governmental organizations providing pro bono legal aid for protection of environmental rights of communities.
Pro bono legal aid is important in Ukraine especially now when majority of people cannot afford professional legal aid. Environmental rights are directly related to the basic human right to life and the level of their protection, especially in industrial regions of East and South of Ukraine is very low. Under such conditions, it is particularly important to develop organizations providing pro bono legal aid for protection of environmental rights and show importance of environmental direction to those human rights protecting organizations that so far do not consider them to be a priority. Participants of the meeting exchanges their experience and interesting mechanisms and tools of cooperation with communities, providing advisory assistance, in particular maintaining hot lines and providing consultations via modern communication means, litigation and also realization of analytical activities and information and advocacy campaigns. The directions and methods of work were outlined by participants of the national network.
All participants will be connected to the electronic listserve, will participate in trainings to be organized in Lviv, Kyiv and Odessa, will participate in creation of an electronic system of environmental information for Kyiv region and in a number of practical initiatives aimed at protection of environmental rights of citizens.
An important aspect of the network functioning is a possibility for members of the network to get assistance in development of institutional capacity, organizational and financial management, strategic planning, realization of information campaigns.
Citizens and communities are expected to strengthen their capacity to protect their environmental rights thanks to strengthened role of centers of pro bono legal aid.
Organizers of the meeting were: International charitable organization Environment-People-Law, environmental NGO EcoPravo-Kyiv, the Bureau of Environmental Investments.
The meeting was held within the project “Strengthening participatory democracy for effective environmental protection” funded by the United Nations democracy Fund.
