Law is the one thing restraining an American president who regularly exceeds his authority. More than 300 lawsuits against the second Trump administration have led to at least partial relief in a number of domains, including unlawful deportations and purges of federal workers. Those victories are fragile, however, in part because they are subject to review by an often unsympathetic Supreme Court, but also for a deeper reason: They involve too few of us.

The law is more powerful when more people understand how to use it. Education efforts like these cards aim to inform immigrants of their rights in case they are questioned by authorities. (Jill Connelly/For Los Angeles Times en Español)

The court rulings are the work of a small number of lawyers and judges and are largely opaque to most Americans. In this moment, we must do away with the common assumption that law is best left to lawyers. If we want to sustain the rule of law, we need to participate in it.

The difference between law and legal empowerment is akin to the difference between the Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth. Although Lincoln’s proclamation theoretically went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, it was not until two and a half years later, when Union troops arrived in Texas, that 250,000 people who were enslaved there could assert their freedom. We remember the proclamation as the first federal legal instrument to reject slavery. We remember Juneteenth for something even more important: the moment when the people whose freedom was at stake were aware of their rights and able to act on them.

To protect democracy in the U.S. today, we need mass legal empowerment. In some places, it’s already begun. Federal workers are learning the details of administrative law so they can respond to arbitrary and unlawful orders. Volunteers working with Organized Communities Against Deportations are helping immigrants to understand their rights and defend each other. In 27 neighborhoods across Chicago, volunteers show up within 10 minutes of an ICE raid. When people invoke their rights—for instance, insisting that agents present a valid judicial warrant before entering a private space—ICE agents have sometimes backed away.

You don’t need to read statutes, regulations or court decisions, which are often written in impenetrable legalese. Credible civil society organizations and some government agencies have simplified important laws. To understand the scope of the 1st Amendment, you can turn to plain language explanations from a group called Freedom Forum. A foreign student writing for a university newspaper has the same free-press rights as any other student journalist, for example, and the government cannot use federal funding to regulate the speech of nongovernmental organizations.

To take climate action in spite of the government’s political stance, you can begin by accessing clean energy tax credits in state and federal law. The climate laws we have will become more effective and more durable if more people understand and use them.

The key is not to do it alone. The law protects our rights as individuals, but learning and using law on your own can be intimidating, especially under a government that is hostile towards basic rights. Legal empowerment works when we come together.

With time, legal empowerment can address the root causes of authoritarianism. Political scientists including Cas Mudde and Pippa Norris describe a vicious cycle: distrust in institutions leads to sympathy for authoritarian politicians, authoritarian politicians undermine institutions, and distrust deepens.

When we use law to tackle problems we face, we reduce the distance between our institutions and ourselves. My colleagues and I recently analyzed interviews with 95 “justice seekers” across Kenya, India and Myanmar — people who used law to address violations of their rights. Of those interviewed, 90% had developed greater confidence in engaging government institutions; 92% said they were either willing to help or had already helped others facing similar problems.

In all three countries, people who faced similar challenges came together to demand improvements in rules and systems. In Kenya, Muslims who had navigated a decades-old discriminatory ID system fought for equal treatment for all. In February 2025, after years of community meetings, marches and parliamentary hearings, President William Ruto abolished discriminatory vetting.

When we do achieve positive changes in law or policy, we shouldn’t assume those changes will implement themselves. Today, Muslims in Kenya are applying for IDs and tracking their experience to make sure the government follows through on the president’s decree. This is the legal empowerment cycle: the journey from knowing and using law to shaping it and back again. By taking part in the legal empowerment cycle, we can build institutions that deserve our trust.

I don’t want to understate the problems with our current legal system or the current administration. Law is overly complicated, unaffordable and in this moment, often disregarded by those who should be upholding it. But all of that can change. As Juneteenth reminds us, law belongs to the people. If we know it, we can use it. If we use it, we can fix it.

—

Subscribe to Vivek’s Substack for more thoughts on the global movement for grassroots justice.

The post What does Juneteenth have in common with today’s immigration raids? appeared first on Namati.

Climate change and its impacts

Nashami (name changed) is an elderly woman and mother of three from Ol Donyiro Community in Isiolo County, Central Kenya. Her community is part of a carbon credit project. She says she heard that their air is being sold abroad for money, which she thinks is why there are rampant droughts and why community members have been getting strange illnesses lately. She is one of the women who routinely conducts rituals to appease the gods for rain in times of prolonged drought.

From 2020 to 2023, communities in East Africa experienced the worst drought since the 1980s. After three years of below-average rainfall, families lost livestock, crops, and livelihoods. Pastoral communities, such as Nashami’s, who make their living from herding livestock, are particularly vulnerable to drought-induced shocks. Climate change manifests as unreliable rainfall patterns and prolonged droughts in Kenya. Carbon credit projects are being implemented to provide alternative income and build communities’ resilience to the shocks caused by climate change.

While Kenya has made commendable strides by enacting laws to provide a framework to address climate change and regulate carbon trading markets and projects, there are still glaring gaps. Many Kenyans, on whose lands carbon credit projects are being implemented, have no idea what carbon credits and trading are. Moreover, the laws lack some key provisions, such as defining carbon rights. Also, adopting the Community Development Agreement, a concept borrowed from the extractives industry, undermines community property rights and autonomy.

Kenya’s legal framework on climate change and carbon markets and how it implicates communities

Today, about 59 different carbon credit projects are being implemented in Kenya. The largest is the Northern Rangeland Trust’s (NRT) Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project (NKRCP), which started in 2013 and will be implemented for 30 years. In 2020, the project reportedly raised 14.6 million US Dollars through carbon credit sales. The project is regarded as “a darling of carbon market supporters,” winning a series of awards at the 27th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2022, and was hailed as “exemplary” by Kenyan President William Ruto.

This apparent profitability of Kenya’s carbon projects prompted the government to enact the Climate Change Act, Cap 387A, in 2023 and, thereafter, the Climate Change (Carbon Markets) Regulations in 2024. However, both the Act and Regulations were enacted in a matter of weeks with limited public participation. The Government is in the process of drafting two additional Regulations: The Climate Change Carbon Trading-Regulations of 2025 and The Climate Change Non-Market Approaches Regulations of 2025.

Certain provisions of the law, such as clearer revenue sharing modalities; the requirement for free, prior, and informed consent before project approval; and a publicly accessible carbon registry, are quite progressive. However, the law fails to define a fundamental aspect: carbon rights. These are rights over emissions reductions or carbon removals that can be defined as intangible assets created by legislative and contractual arrangements. They define the contractual frameworks that define who has the right to the benefits and responsibilities associated with carbon stocks and the ability to sell or trade carbon credits for emissions reductions. This omission deprives communities of their legal property rights over carbon credits, limiting their ability to trade in the carbon markets.

The law also adopted the concept of Community Development Agreements (CDAs) for projects being implemented on community lands. A CDA is a legally binding contract between a company, often a mining or development company, and a community and is closely supervised by the government. The CDA is borrowed from the extractives industry and is intended for the exploration of resources for public interest. This insinuates that the drafters of the law presumed that carbon credits are public interest and therefore communities can only participate as beneficiaries and not necessarily in the governance of such projects.

The omission of provision on carbon rights and the adoption of CDA creates a conflict with the Constitution and the Community Land Act, which provide that communities have full ownership rights over their lands and the autonomy to contract with outsiders, including investors, on their terms. Furthermore, the establishment of numerous subcommittees heavily constituted by government officials in the CDAs undermines community autonomy and community land governance structures established by the Community Land Act.

Local communities’ response to climate change

Over time, the pastoral communities have developed comprehensive resilience mechanisms, such as mobility and agro-pastoralism, to adapt to climate change and unreliable rainfall patterns. Mobility helps the herders track greener pastures and avoid forage supply scarcity.

While agro-pastoralism helps communities diversify their food sources by mixing grain production with livestock management. Farming is increasingly becoming practiced to make up for lost income from declining herds, but it is not being developed as a substitute for pastoralism.

These indigenous resilience strategies – mobility and agro-pastoralism – are effective but increasingly under strain. Without legal frameworks that support rather than override community autonomy, such time-tested responses to climate stress may collapse.

What are other actors up to?

Many actors are working to support the development of robust laws and policies. For example, the Grassroots Justice Network’s carbon justice campaign has produced 6 key principles for carbon justice. Network members have drafted a new toolkit that details how to influence national policy to reflect community needs. In April 2025, Namati convened a workshop in Kenya, bringing together Network members from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in Africa; India and the Philippines in Asia; and Chile in Latin America, actively influencing national carbon legislation in their respective countries. Grassroots movements are working to ensure carbon laws center justice, not just profits. Kenya’s laws must catch up.

Kenya stands at a crossroads. With carbon markets expanding, the question is not whether to trade carbon – but who gets to decide, how, and who benefits. Without clear carbon rights and meaningful community governance, these laws risk becoming tools of exclusion. The time is now to put communities at the heart of climate justice.

The post Kenya’s Climate Laws Leave Communities Behind: Missing Rights in the Carbon Market appeared first on Namati.

You can also listen to this episode on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

SUMMARY

In 2020, a community activist by the name of Leticia Caro approached FIMA, a grassroots justice organization in Chile. Leticia, a member of the indigenous Kawésqar community in the Magallanes region, was worried about the environmental impact of companies that were moving  into the fjords of the Kawésqar National Reserve. 

In this episode, we’re going to take a dive into what lies beneath these fjords and their icy waters: Chile’s salmon farming industry. We’ll follow the story of FIMA and the community-led resistance that is defending the sea from this destructive industry. And we’ll find out what can happen when an indigenous community, grounded in deep traditions of communing with the natural world, combines the power of law and the power of organizing, to protect their sacred waters.

Special thanks to Macarena Martinic, Gabriela Simonetti Grez and FIMA.

This episode was produced by Jackie Sofia and Poorvi Chitalkar. 

A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes for Grassroots Justice is a production of Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network. Support for “A Common Pot” is provided by IDRC Canada. 

Follow the Grassroots Justice Network on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @grassrootsjn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing community@namati.org.

SHOW NOTES

• 01:00 Macarena Martinic, Coordinator of Empowerment and Public Participation, FIMA
• 01:00 FIMA
• 03:00 Figueroa, Dante. Chile: New Law Creates Ministry for the Environment, Other Environmental Agencies. (Library of Congress – 2010)
• 04:00 FIMA’s work alongside the Kawésqar community
• 04:00 Kawésqar Wæs – Chilean Patagonia’s greatest wilderness is a home (IUCN – August 28, 2023)
• 05:00 Salmon Farms in Patagonia Face Growing Opposition (NYTimes – August 13, 2024)
• 06:00 Salmon Farming in Chile: The Ugly Truth (The Borgen Project – June 6, 2020) 
• 06:00 ‘A silent catastrophe’: Chilean fishermen protest failure to mitigate toxic ‘red tide’ (The Guardian – May 3, 2016)
• 07:00 Salmon in protected areas, pigs in mass (La Segunda – June 6, 2023)
• 09:00-10:00 Canoeros: Memoria Viva (Pristine Seas, National Geographic Society – 2022)
• 10:00 Leticia Caro guest interview segment, Podcast Ladera Sur- Inspirados por la Naturaleza
• 11:00-12:00 Leticia Caro guest interview segment, Ciclo Pueblos Originarios
• 14:00 Legal empowerment and defense of the territory in Magallanes: The case of resistance to the salmon industry (English, Spanish; FIMA – 2024)
• 15:00 New victory in the Kawésqar National Reserve: Environmental Court blocks the installation of a new salmon farm for the fifth time (FIMA – June 7, 2023)
• 17:00 Hidrógeno verde “a la chilena”: Análisis crítico de la (des)regulación del hidrógeno en Chile (FIMA – March 20, 2025)
• 21:00 Transmisión causa R-31-2023 Comunidad Indígena Aswal Lajep y otros con COEVA Región de Magallanes (Tercer Tribunal Ambiental – June 4, 2024)
• 26:00 FIMA’s recent statement on media-based attacks aimed at the organization’s environmental defense work (January 6, 2025)
• 32:00-33:00 The calafate berry

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes from Grassroots Justice

Episode 4: FIMA, “What Lies Beneath”

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:00:11] A fjord is like a mini island, lots of mini islands, one beside another, so it’s like a crackled territory. So Chile is very long, it’s very thin, and suddenly in its southern tail it becomes all of these crackled territories, so its like little islands one beside the other. And these fjords are not only special because they are islands, but the water between them- it’s really calm and it’s like this special mixture from marine water and also melted ice water from the mountains. So we have all of these species that can also have refuge here in the fjord. but there’s like marine wolves and a lot of bird types. And even there’s like marine elephants. A million years ago, Kawésqar communities also found refuge in those fjords. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:01:21] This is Macarena Martinic. She is the coordinator of empowerment and public participation at FIMA, a grassroots justice organization in Chile that works towards ensuring the right to a free and healthy environment. The cold and crackled region that Macarena is talking about is Magallanes, a region in Chilean Patagonia. In this episode, we’re gonna take a dive into what lies beneath these fjords and their icy waters: Chile’s salmon farming industry. We’ll follow the story of FIMA and the community led resistance that is defending the sea from this destructive industry. And we’ll find out what can happen when an indigenous community, grounded in deep traditions of communing with the natural world, combines the power of law and the power of organizing to protect their sacred waters. I’m your host, Poorvi Chitalkar. Stay with us. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:02:26] This is A Common Pot, a podcast where we explore stories and recipes for social justice and systems change from around the world. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:02:48] FIMA was created in 1998. They started out as a sort of prosecuting organization for environmental crimes. They would take on a particular issue and litigate it. But over the years, their role changed. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:03:02] Yeah, there definitely has been an evolution. In ’98, when it was founded, we- Chile didn’t have an environmental institutionality. Now, since 2010, we have a solid environmental institutionality and FIMA was one of the organizations that was in that process. As a result, we now have environmental courts, we have an environmental assessment authority, we have- even we have an environmental ministry that we didn’t have in that time. We have special procedures for people to participate, to observe, to prosecute. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:45] While FIMA helped build many of these institutions and tools, they also started to help communities use them. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:03:52] And was that calling just for FIMA’s help that started all of these relationships with different communities. And nowadays we have been working with communities for a long years. And in other cases, we are almost every month helping a new community. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:04:12] In 2020, the Kawésqar community approached FIMA for their help. The Kawésqar are an indigenous people from the Magallanes region. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:04:24] Kawésqar people are a nomadic canoeist people who have inhabited and navigated the fjords and inland seas of Patagonia for thousands of years. So Kawésqar have been years and years navigating this entire territory. And now what they called the Kawésqar Wæs, that’s this huge, huge territory that they used to travel to, we know it as Patagonia. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:04:51] By the time the Kawésqar people approached FIMA, their ancestral territory was in serious danger. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:04:59] The salmon farming industry is an industry that started in Chile in the 70s. So before that, we didn’t have salmon farming. Salmon is not a native or a fish that grew naturally in Chile; it’s something that was introduced in a moment just for economic reasons. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:05:20] Over the last 50 years, salmon farms have made their way south, down the coast of Chile. As more and more of the sea became polluted from these farms, companies kept moving south in search of cleaner and more pristine waters, until they set up shop in the southernmost region of Chile – Magallanes in Patagonia. And today, Chile is the second largest producer of farmed salmon in the world, generating 6.5 billion dollars in export revenue. If you look at them from above, salmon farms don’t look like much. They’re a thin grid-like structure that sits on the surface of the water. But underneath are pens enclosed by nets, each pen holding thousands of salmon. The salmon live their entire lives in these pens. The population density inside the pens makes it a breeding ground for bacteria growth and disease. And so, antibiotics get pumped into the water to try to prevent the spread of disease. those antibiotics make their way into other wild species. The manufactured fish food and concentrated fish waste end up creating dead zones that kill ocean life. Escaped salmon from these farms also eat the native fish. This means that fisher folk who rely on local species for income and as a way of feeding their families are suffering too. Eventually, the salmon are mature enough to be harvested and killed for export. A person eating the salmon often has no idea that the farm that it came from has endangered people’s entire way of life. These destructive salmon farms exist despite the fact that the Kawésqar community’s territory has protected status as a national reserve. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:07:10] there is a space for interpretation and that’s what in Chile has been very bad done by different governmental institutions. And they have said that it is allowed for salmon industry to be in- placed in the National Reserve, even though it is a very aggressive industry, it has big environmental harms, and even though it is like quite obvious that this activity is not compatible with the National Reserve. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:07:45] Even though salmon farms are scientifically proven to harm local wildlife and communities, it’s pretty easy to get a permit for operating in the National Reserve. All a farm has to do is submit a declaration. This declaration gets reviewed by the Environmental Assessment Authorities. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:08:01] Yeah, you don’t even apply, you just do it. What happens when you have a declaration is, it’s a- it’s like literal a declaration. So the private owner of the project is declaring, like in a good faith, that his project is not going to produce environmental impacts. So they’re like swearing to us and we need to trust them. And also there’s no public participation unless you request it. and you have like a very short term to request it. It’s only 30 days. And this request has to be accepted. So the environmental authority is going to decide if your public participation requirement fits. And this is like a big problem that we have identified in the most of the communities in Chile that are trying to protect their lands or the environment, that they don’t really know the law and they don’ really know how to participate when these projects are being environmentally assessed. But of course, the law doesn’t make it that easy. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:09:10] It is not easy. First, you may not even know that a declaration has been issued by a salmon farm. And even if you did find out, you would only have a small window of time to draft and submit a request letter that argues for the public to have a say. But the Kawésqar people didn’t have a choice. They needed to become environmental defenders quickly. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:09:31] they are not environmental defenders. So they are just a family- a group of families that wants to fight for their cosmovision. They want to- they are also in this journey to get back their cosmovision. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:09:49] The Kawésqar people’s way of life is older than Chile itself. For thousands of years, they have navigated the area of Patagonia and beyond. And so, with the salmon farming industry threatening the sea, they HAVE to fight to keep their cosmovision alive. The meaning of the Kawésqar cosmovision is difficult to translate, but what’s unique about it is a close bond to the sea. The sea is at the heart of their culture. For the Kawésqar people, defending the sea also means conserving memory, honoring ancestors, and preserving their cultural identity. 

Leticia Caro (archival tape, English interpretation from Spanish) [00:10:34] From the perspective of the elders, what is the most important force, perhaps the greatest spirit of the territory? No, it’s not just perhaps, it is the greatest. Since time immemorial, there have been certain restrictions related to the sea. These restrictions are called hayámes, which are taboos. They prohibit throwing objects into the water that do not belong to the sea, as doing so is believed to awaken monsters in the ocean depths. So, when I explain these to my children in those very words they begin to understand that there is a deep respect for that being, for that force that is present and that has guided us in both the past and the present. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:11:21] They have another dynamic or structural intersection that is colonialism that, of course, is something forced and is driving away their identity and their cosmovision. So they are also in this process of gaining it back. This is all of the things that I have been learning from many, many talks with Leticia that has had the patience to tell me this story once over and over. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:11:56] Leticia Caro has become a leader in the Kawésqar community in Magallanes and their fight to defend the sea. Maca remembers when FIMA first started working with them. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:12:05] Leticia Caro is one of the Kawésqar families’ representatives, reached to us. They were, on that time, facing problems with a legal figure that is supposed to protect a certain area for constitutonarios, for indigenous uses. So the area is given for the community’s administration if they prove that they use this area, and they have been using it for this time as their custom. So they had this trouble with these requirements. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:12:42] FIMA worked with Leticia to file a legal claim to protect an area inside the Kawésqar National Reserve by showing the court that the Kawésqar community was already using it according to their indigenous customs. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:12:54] but it’s actually one of the most powerful weapons of this law. Salmon farming or other fishery- aquaculture industries are not allowed to ask or use their concessions. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:13:12] And they won that case. This was an important win for FIMA and the Kawésqar community. But it was just the beginning. Several cases followed, challenging various companies’ declarations to set up in the National Reserve. And each time, Maca and her team did their best to bring the community’s knowledge and the Kawésqar cosmovision into the courts. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:13:34] It’s a balance you need to strike in a way, because we cannot of course file a legal action entirely based on the Kawésqar community’s knowledge, because we need to of course use the law to enter the court’s jurisdiction. But also we have like this important knowledge that could maybe shape law. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:13:59] They built their resistance against the salmon farming industry with two key strategies, or weapons, as Maca calls them. One: They challenged the decision of the Environmental Assessment Authority with something called general administrative recursive reclamations. This sounds super technical. But the gist of it is this: If you can prove that the company’s claims about the environmental risks posed by the project are false, then they could get shut down by the government. This became a kind of legal companion for the Kawésqar people’s existing knowledge. They knew that the salmon farms were wrecking more havoc on the environment than they let on. But they needed to prove it to the assessment authority. And that proof came by boat. The Kawésqar people had seen that employees of various different salmon farms were being picked up by the same boat at different ports in Magallanes. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:14:57] they all were connected between them in a way because the same boat went from Natales or from Punta Arenas that took the working people to the center, that took back the salmons that were raised there- raised (laughs) – grown there. Now I’m getting attached to salmons. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:15:17] When FIMA and the community dug further, they found out that even though these salmon farms had registered as separate projects, they were in fact all operated by the same Norwegian-owned company called Nova Austral. And so they made the case that the environmental impact of all of these farms should be assessed together. FIMA and the Kawésqar community took this case all the way to the Supreme Court in Chile. And they won. The Supreme Court win set a precedent moving forward. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:15:50] This was an important decision, not only because these projects weren’t able to develop here. The judge’s decision was very important for other cases of salmon farming, because it stated that it was needed an integral assessment of these projects and that was not being done, because most of the projects were fragmented. So, they were like units that each one entered into the assessment environmental process, but they needed to be assessed in a whole. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:16:25] Fighting projects that are already in operation is difficult and takes a long time. This one case alone, it took about eight years to move through the court system. But what if they could learn about the projects before they started? The second weapon also involved catching the companies in their own lie. FIMA and the Kawésqar community found company declarations that claimed that the public had had a chance to give feedback on the project, when in reality, this never happened. This also worked. Three salmon farming centers had their declarations denied and had to go back to the beginning of the application process. Another win for the Kawésqar community. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:17:07] So we were able to get the Supreme Court to say there was no public participation made in the process and therefore there was an illegal violation of the right to participate, the right to environmental protections. And these projects went again entered into the environmental assessment process. And then the community started organizing again to make a lot of observations. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:17:34] Salmon farming isn’t the only threat facing this community. Coal mining poses significant environmental and community risks. And now, the heavy winds that blow through this region are being coveted for hydrogen production. There are at least 22 hydrogen projects in Magallanes, and all the energy they produce is being exported to Europe. Even though this is seen as a quote-unquote green energy source, it copies the same old patterns of harming communities that come with other forms of resource extraction. The truth is, the Kawésqar community will have to continue defending their territory for the foreseeable future. To get there, FIMA has worked with Leticia and others in the community to build their knowledge of the law and their ability to use the law themselves. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:18:22] Like, how can we work with communities that is not only around a legal strategy? First, it was mainly throughout, like, classic legal empowerment, to say, that it was workshops and bringing them to the process throughout activities where they could know the law. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:18:41] It was difficult for Maca to know if all of FIMA’s efforts were making any difference, were building any sort of capacity. But then, something happened. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:18:52] We were laughing a couple of months ago with a colleague from FIMA when Leticia sent us a document. It was a legal document. It was something that it was a specific requirement of having an environmental assessment ended. And she sent us one for one project. We thought at first that she was asking us if we could fill it, if we can make this petition for the environmental authority regarding this specific project. So we asked her, what was this about? And she answered us, “No. I’m sending this just for you to know.” “To know what?” “To know that I already presented this.” And she had already made her document. She had already presented it. This was just like a notice for us. that felt so good, so we are hopeful that she could maybe transmit this knowledge to other Kawésqar members and that really like make- give sense to our work. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:19:59] While Maca and her team are helping the community understand the law, they are also making sure that the law pays attention to the Kawésqar knowledge and cosmovision. They have recently put this to the test in the case of the Canal Kirke. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:20:14] We had this recent hearing in Valdivia. It’s a project that pretends to explode a canal where- an important canal for Kawésqar communities, they want to explode it in order to broaden it and bigger ships can go through. It is Canal Kirke. Beautiful place with amazing animals, birds, views and amazing stories- Kawésqar stories of what happens there, how Kawésqar women taught their kids to navigate, to know the territory. If the Kirke was aggressive you couldn’t navigate through the Kirke. Kawésqar wisdom just like taught you to wait, maybe this is not the time, that maybe the canal is not ready for us going. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:21:14] A couple months ago, FIMA concluded their arguments in the case to protect the canal. In addition to technical and legal arguments, they included the Kawésqar cosmovision, which argues for a more respectful and less extractive relationship with nature. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:21:48] They document reports and a lot of testimonies and time of the Kawésqar community, so I really hope I could say you in a couple of months something different and that our strategy of bringing the cosmovision of the Kawésqars is like giving success. It was something important in that hearing and there was a lot of people watching. It was really exciting. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:22:18] The Canal Kirke case and the salmon farming resistance show how incremental wins take time. And the years that it takes for these incremental wins to happen, that long wait can feed frustration in the community. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:22:31] Frustration is something really close and really present throughout all of this process and that’s something that it’s difficult to work with because frustration is not only a feeling, it’s also something that can weaken the organization, can weaken bonds between communities. It can also generate untrust, desconfianza, of the organization and the strategy. So time is a challenge itself. So that’s something that we usually talk with the communities when we start working, like from the start. And I think what’s most important is we need to make sure that our work is not exclusively a legal strategy, because we know that even after long processes and after good decisions, even that doesn’t mean justice for the territories. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:23:32] And if the long wait and uncertain processes aren’t challenging enough, FIMA and the Kawésqar community are up against another big challenge: there’s a false narrative brewing that frames them as being anti-development and anti-progress. The narrative goes something like this… 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:23:49] “They are getting and messing into the things, threatening our ways of living and mainly our job, because they have their conservative environmental interests, own interests.” So it’s like a really ancient narrative, but that has been increasing in the last maybe two years. Really, really strong in the salmon farming industry. So we believe the narrative starts in companies, but companies are not really the ones that are saying this, like on the media, on interviews. It’s the workers. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:24:37] And even within the Kawésqar community, there are different views. There are “the Kawésqar people who defend the sea,” and then there are Kawésqar people who rely on these salmon farming companies to earn a living and feed their families. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:24:52] Yeah, of course. Probably there are more Kawésqar families that works for the industry, or they just don’t care. Maybe they have decided, because they can and it’s perfect, it’s okay, they don’t want to recover their cosmovision. That’s why the Kawésqar communities that we work with, they call themselves as the “Kawésqar communities that defend the sea,” because it’s not inherently as Kawésqar. One of the impacts that they denounce from the salmon farming industries, of course, how social tissue and also their links among, like in their own family has been deteriorating. Being accused if you are working in a certain place, being accused if you are opposing a project, having this, like, binary decisions of course can break any family. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:25:59] FIMA and the Kawésqar who defend the sea have been fielding baseless attacks on the salmon farming resistance for a while now, but recently it’s gotten worse. A couple years ago, FIMA was running a legal empowerment workshop in Puerto Natales and things took a turn. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:26:16] It was open as always. So we were really like teaching people how to make complaints in the environmental prosecutor agency. That was it. It was like really basic. But it was a moment where we had like just win a couple of months before. And of course, workers were really annoyed. They didn’t allow people to talk. They made like suggesting questions of, “Why are you here? Why are you taking our jobs? What have we done to you?” They didn’t like allow to carry on with the workshop. In our case we were three women colleagues, so they treated us like as little girls and, “You don’t know what we do. You don’t know how our work is done.” We were talking about an administrative process and they would ask us like, “Do you know how technically a cage type F works?” Like things that really weren’t into the case, to demonstrate that we didn’t know what we were talking about when talking about salmon farming. And we couldn’t go on with the workshop. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:27:26] This was just one instance of many. Maca and her team know the powers behind it too. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:27:32] And they are also supported by right-handed parliamentaries that are pushing the agenda of the industry in the parliament. So that’s what the narrative is about. And it’s hard. Like, people who are living in Magallanes, it’s appealing to fear, it’s appealing to insecurity. And that, of course, divides the community, with of course, normal consequence of environmental defenders that live there and indigenous communities feeling their security threatened. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:28:06] FIMA has responded to these attacks with transparency. They’ve published clear evidence in defense of their work on their website. And they’ve published opinion columns in reputed media outlets. But they’re beginning to see how this is a trap. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:28:21] We didn’t want, like, people to feel we were hiding things. But also, we don’t want to fall. And that’s something that we believe that one of their main objectives is that we use our time and our energy in defending ourselves. And that’s something that has happened. We have been likewise other years, now we have been SLAPPed in more than one case. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:28:49] SLAPPs are strategic lawsuits against public participation. Essentially, these are bogus lawsuits that are brought to harass and silence justice defenders, often by the companies that they’re trying to hold accountable. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:29:03] So, we have, and we need to spend time in this. And that’s something that we wouldn’t like to do, but it’s something that we are facing and we have to do. So we need to choose which of the battles give, so we can also have time and energy to keep our work on. So it’s not easy. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:29:25] This narrative question weighs heavily on FIMA’s minds. It’s also a struggle for lots of grassroots justice organizations around the world. To respond to these false and negative narratives, communities are often asked what their version is- what is YOUR counter-narrative? 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:29:41] A powerful narrative is a narrative that is built from below and that is built from also the communities that we work for and that we want our narrative to work for. So, narratives in the case of Magallanes is something we want to really start working with them and see how we can face this together. We usually work a lot from the opposing way, because of mainly how legal strategies work. And we usually react a lot. But this working with narratives takes you- like, pushes you to go into a more positive, creative language. And also, it’s not easy to be an indigenous community in Chile, nor in Latin America. No, maybe not in any country in the world. So, you need to take into account that maybe your narrative is never going to be massive and that doesn’t matter. It’s your narrative too, and you need to like own it. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:30:55] Maca reminds us that in a way, the counter-narrative, the answer to this question that asks the community what their version of development is, what they would like the economic future to look like for their children and grandchildren, is both simple, but also complex. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:31:14] Yes, and no. (Laughs.) They have this imaginary where Kawésqar cosmovision is again something they can live in, something they are not defending, that is respected also. But I believe they still are in an unfortunate moment where they need to still be defending themselves and saving their cosmovision and resisting. They come from a process that was something very different before that has all of these structural things intertwined, like their way of life has been changing a lot; the indigenous legal tools that are protecting indigenous communities are demanding them to be indigenous, but they’re also like being part, like us, of a process that we’re all going to as society. We can call it globalization, or maybe like development, or whatever, but I do know they want to stop defending and they want a place where they can reconnect with their cosmovision. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:32:35] I asked Maca to share a recipe with us, it could be food or drink, that captures the spirit of Magallanes and this story. 

Macarena Martinic, FIMA [00:32:42] Calafate is a berry that is typical from the region. And also, lots of people recollects calafate. Kawésqar communities also have this important activity in recollecting calafate. Before now, if you go to Magallanes, you start seeing all the calafate products that there are. But it, like, has the perfect acid flavor you need in that cold region, and beautiful region. And it’s like making pisco sour that is like a Chilean and Peruvian also drink. And in this case you would have pisco, sugar, lime- it’s also with lime but you would add like calafate syrup as you like. I recommend. And if you have the calafate syrup nothing can go bad. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:33:33] One of the legends of the region is that anyone who eats the calafate berry will find themselves in Patagonia. The other week, our colleague Claudia brought back the mythological calafate berry in the form of a small jar of jam. It sat on the counter, glistening a ruby red through the glass. Jackie and I dug into this precious treat and realized the legend was true. We were immediately transported to Magallanes, with its sparkling vast ocean and gusts win. We felt the beauty of the Kawésqar Wæs and the fragility of those crackled icy fjords and all the lives that call it home. 

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:34:30] This episode was produced by me, Poorvi Chitalkar. Our managing producer is Jackie Sofia. Audio engineering and sound design by Mohamad Khreizat. Editorial support by the Namati Communications team. Additional support by Anuradha Joshi, Claudia Cote, and Catalina Marino. A very special thanks to Macarena Martinic and Gabriela Simonetti Grez of FIMA, for sharing their story with us. Thanks also to Canada’s International Development Research Centre, whose support makes this work possible. A Common Pot: stories and recipes of grassroots justice, is a production of Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network. To join the network, head to www.grassrootsjusticenetwork.org and follow us on social media, on YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook @grassrootsjn. 

The post A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes for Grassroots Justice | Podcast | Episode 4 – What Lies Beneath feat. FIMA appeared first on Namati.

The petition was filed by Haki Na Sheria Initiative on 20 December 2023 on the grounds that the new Maisha Namba ID system failed to address flaws in Kenya’s identity system that openly discriminate against certain groups, violates the right to privacy and that its rollout lacked due process and public participation in lawmaking.

During the hearing at the Milimani Law Courts, the presiding judge Lawrence Mugambi, heard from two expert witnesses on the exclusion risks, privacy concerns and the inadequate legal framework, considering the extensive changes proposed by the Maisha Namba system including biometrics collection and centralized access to the population register.

The expert witnesses argued that the existing problems in the ID system that actively discriminates against about 5 million Kenyans leading to their lack of identification had not been addressed by Maisha Namba and would only be made worse by its rushed and mandatory rollout.

“The Maisha Namba system assumes that everyone can prove that they are a Kenyan. Our chief concern is that there are communities that have not been able to acquire national IDs or birth certificates for their nationality to be recognized,” expert witness Laura Bingham told the court.

The expert witnesses also highlighted the difficulties faced by those without national IDs or birth certificates in joining the new ID system.

“People require an existing form of an ID to enrol into the Maisha Namba ecosystem. Proof of nationality is more relevant than ever in the Maisha Namba regime. For millions of Kenyans who lack any form of identification, the Maisha Namba system lacks any meaningful remedies to ensure their inclusion,” the court was told.

The expert witnesses also underscored concerns about building a centralized database of biometric information and a unique personal identifier (UPI) number that can be seeded or linked across government agencies warning of the vulnerability to data breaches and the lack of citizens protection from surveillance.

“A lot of individuals personal data including facial and iris scans will be collected by Maisha Namba. Citizens would be left unprotected from data breaches, exclusion and even surveillance.”

“You can change your password, but you cannot change your biometrics,” said Tom Fisher, a senior researcher with Privacy International.

The Maisha Namba petitioners call on the courts to mandate the government to address these systemic issues by:

1. Implementing affirmative action measures to issue identification to all Kenyans, especially those previously excluded from accessing documents due to the historical existence of discriminatory vetting.

2.  Ending ID vetting and differential treatment of ID applicants in all forms.

3. Conducting, making public and implementing  a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) on Maisha Namba to identify and mitigate risks to citizens privacy in compliance with the Data Protection Act and a Human Rights Impact Assessment to ensure the equal delivery of people’s constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Signed by Civil Society Organizations:

Nubian Rights Forum
Paranet
Namati Kenya
Haki Center
The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya)
Access Now
ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa
KICTANet
Kenya Human Rights Commission

The post Kenyan Citizens Who Struggle to Obtain IDs Still Blocked from Enrolling to Digital ID Maisha Namba, Court Told appeared first on Namati.

This marks the first time a Kenyan president has publicly acknowledged the unconstitutional nature of this discriminatory system, calling it unjust and declaring that citizens should “feel like Kenyans without any discrimination.”

In May 2024, the government had earlier declared that vetting committees would be abolished and began implementing new ID registration guidelines aimed at removing the extra vetting steps for ID application.

What is ID Vetting?

In Kenya, about 5 million people – primarily from Muslim-majority communities – have been forced to go through intrusive security screenings, excessive documentation requirements, and unreasonable delays when applying for essential identity documents.

ID vetting is a harmful practice that violates citizenship and associated rights due to ID denials. Lack of an ID limits access to public services, locks people out of economic opportunities such as getting a job, having a bank account or even owning a sim card and perpetuates cycles of poverty.

Before this order, ID vetting had been systematic across Kenya for decades, imposed on ID applicants only because of their religious background. Even when an applicant provided all the necessary supporting documents required by law for ID application, he or she would have to appear before a vetting committee composed of registration and security agents that wielded unchecked power in determining whether applicants get ID documentation. An applicant could wait months or longer to appear before the committee, where he or she would face random questioning and excessive requests for documentation unrelated to citizenship as defined in Kenyan law, often leading to further delays or denial of ID cards.

Watch this video for more context on ID vetting:

What did Namati/our partners do to try to resolve it?

Namati and partners began to mainstream discussions around exclusion in nationality rights where before it was shrouded in secrecy under the blanket cover of national security. When the work began, many national and grassroots organizations shied away from challenging this discrimination.

Through community organizing, Namati created a platform for highlighting the discriminatory and arbitrary nature of ID vetting, pushing discussions to the national stage. We utilized legal empowerment for communities and elevated the conversation to directly engage policymakers to end ID vetting. In 2015, one of our partner staff Fatuma Abdul Rahman tabled a question on vetting during the presidential debates. Vetting and other forms of exclusion were central to our campaigning around the Huduma Namba digital ID, building a public consciousness around the issues. Community-driven petitions and paralegal case data submitted as part of fact-finding led to Parliament recognizing vetting as discriminatory. Over the years, concerns on ID vetting became central in public discourse leading to the presidential candidates in the 2022 general elections accepting that it was indeed a national issue that needed a resolution. As a result, President Ruto’s party, in its manifesto, adopted marginalization in IDs as a critical action point in his administration. We have since run a focused campaign against vetting on social media and television – see below!

Why does it matter?

Vetting is discriminatory and impedes millions from accessing Kenyan nationality despite having a clear right to it under Kenyan law. Other ‘mainstream’ communities in Kenya do not face vetting when applying for ID documents and ID applications can take a day with issuance in 21 days.

Read our in-depth statement on the abolishing of vetting committees.

What happens next?

Focus now shifts to monitoring these new practices, preventing any backsliding on our hard-won progress, and pushing for clear, consistent treatment of all ID applicants countrywide and legislative amendments to fully dismantle the legal framework that enabled discrimination. With paralegals actively working across seven counties and the #MyIDMyRight movement continuing to grow, we remain committed to our ultimate goal: ensuring every Kenyan enjoys equal, non-discriminatory access to citizenship documents—the necessary foundation for a full, flourishing life as a Kenyan.

We also remain willing to work with the Government of Kenya to implement the necessary legislative and regulatory changes that would guarantee an equal and fair identification system for all Kenyan citizens, no matter their religious background or region of residence.

The post We dreamed it. We did it. Kenya Abolishes ID Vetting. appeared first on Namati.

The Challenge of Defining Impact

People who choose a career in monitoring and evaluation (M&E)—studying the impact of programs—are a special breed. They crave precision, clarity, and logic. They want to see the evidence behind decisions. They are, in short, nerds. I say this with confidence because I’m one of them. (In my wedding vows, I cited research on what makes marriages work. Jury’s still out on whether that was a good idea, but the marriage is thriving—perhaps just correlation.)

This precision-driven mindset leads to debates over terminology, definitions, and boundaries. Outcomes are different from impacts. Impacts are different from goals. And so on.

These debates surface in organizations’ attempts to categorize ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ beneficiaries—people who ‘benefit’ from an intervention in different ways. The intention behind this classification is good: donors want to understand the reach and significance of a program. But what does “direct benefit” really mean? Does it measure the degree of benefit? Or how closely someone interacts with program activities? Despite its well-intentioned origins, this terminology often confuses more than it clarifies.

Namati’s Approach to Defining Impact

Namati takes a different approach.

First, we avoid vague terms like “direct” and “indirect” beneficiaries. Instead, we talk about meaningful improvements in people’s lives. If a change is meaningful to a community, it matters to us.

Second, we avoid the term “beneficiaries,” which implies that an outside entity bestows benefits on a passive community. Communities are agents of change. Namati’s paralegals don’t simply provide assistance; they work alongside communities, helping them assert their rights and voice their priorities. Communities define what a meaningful resolution looks like and take action—collecting evidence, filing complaints, and engaging government officials—to achieve it.

How Do We Count People Whose Lives Meaningfully Improved?

Over the past year, we’ve refined our approach to identifying who should be counted in this group. Before diving into those changes, here are some examples of how we traditionally assess impact:

• Land, Climate, and Environmental Justice: When communities establish stronger, more inclusive land governance, the entire community benefits from clearer rules and more secure tenure. In cases of environmental harm, if a company stops polluting a river, we count not just the immediate community but also potentially affected downstream communities.
• Citizenship Rights Cases: When individuals secure essential identity documents after facing discriminatory vetting processes, we count both the person receiving the ID and their immediate next of kin, who also benefit from access to employment, education, and social services.

How Our Approach Has Evolved

Recently, we made two key changes to how we calculate whose lives meaningfully improved, recognizing that justice solutions often create ripple effects beyond those directly involved.

1. Health Justice in Mozambique
Our advocates work with patients to address systemic breakdowns in healthcare delivery, tackling issues like discrimination, lack of privacy for stigmatized illnesses, and medication shortages. Until recently, we counted only those who sought care at facilities where advocates were active, estimating this number based on a small percentage of the surrounding population.

We’ve since realized that better, more dignified healthcare benefits an entire community, not just those who visit the facility. Access to improved care leads to longer life expectancy and better health outcomes. As a result, we now include the total catchment area population in our calculations.

2. Fair Carbon Deals and Land Rights in Kenya
Fair Carbon Deals and Land Rights in Kenya
Previously, we counted impact only when communities successfully negotiated fair lease agreements with companies. But there are meaningful milestones along the way.

For example, in Kenya, 27 communities engaging with the Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project secured access to the agreement that governs the project, which is the world’s largest soil-based carbon project, spanning 1.9 million hectares. Gaining access to this agreement required persistence and creativity. The ability to access critical information about their own land was a victory in itself, and moving forward, we will count milestones like this as meaningful improvements in community justice.

A Commitment to Transparency

With this post, we aim to provide more transparency into how we measure one key aspect of Namati’s impact: grassroots justice solutions. In the future, we hope to share more about how we document and assess systemic change and efforts to build community power.

If you’re still reading, congratulations—you may be an M&E nerd. We’d love to discuss and exchange ideas on how best to understand and document change. Feel free to reach out to me at michaelzanchelli@namati.org with your reflections, ideas, or even new research citations on what makes a marriage work.

The post How Namati Measures Impact from Grassroots Justice Solutions appeared first on Namati.

You can also listen to this episode on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

SUMMARY

In 2000, a group of farmers from an Indonesian mountain village were in the middle of protesting to regain rights to their ancestral land, when they were taken into custody. They were charged as criminals of the state, not knowing if or when they would be released to continue their struggle…

In this episode, we follow the story of the farmers of Bandungan and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI). We learn how a small rural farming community whose land had been seized by a military dictatorship in the 1960s organized themselves, and built unshakable community power to help fuel Indonesia’s pro-democracy movement. And we begin to wonder if community power can rise up and take hold after years of suffocation by authoritarian rule.

Special thanks to Pratiwi Febry, Rakhma Mary Herwati and YLBHI- the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

This episode was produced by Jackie Sofia and Poorvi Chitalkar. 

A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes for Grassroots Justice is a production of Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network. Support for “A Common Pot” is provided by IDRC Canada. 

Follow the Grassroots Justice Network on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @grassrootsjn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing community@namati.org.

Listen to Episode 1 and Episode 2.

SHOW NOTES

• 02:00 Rendang
• 02:00 Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI)
• 02:00 Siti Rakhma Mary Herwati, Co-Chair, Knowledge Management, YLBHI
• 04:00 Pratiwi Febry, YLBH
• 05:00 1965 military coup led by General Suharto
• 05:00-06:00 The New Order (1965-1998)
• 06:00 YLBHI founded in 1971
• 10:00 Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW)
• 10:00 KontraS (Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence)
• 10:00 Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA)
• 10:00 Voice of Human Rights media Youtube channel
• 11:00 “In 1996, an economic crisis hit Indonesia.”
• 11:00 “Locomotive of Democracy”
• 12:00 President Suharto resigns, May 21, 1998; Associated Press Archive
• 12:00 Case documentation: Land reclaiming experience of Indonesian farmers. Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development. October 20. 2006.
• 13:00 Semarang, Central Java
• 14:00 Fajfrlíková, Pavla (2018), Kejawen as the Traditional Mystical Belief on the Contemporary Java Island, Kulturní studia / Cultural Studies.
• 15:00 Bachriadi, Dianto. Fighting for land. Inside Indonesia. January, 2012.
• 21:00 black campaigns vs. negative campaigns 
• 21:00 “Indonesia: Millions of victims and families still abandoned 50 years after mass killings,” Human Rights Watch. September 30, 2015.
• 29:00 Grassroots Justice Network 
• 29:00 learning agenda participatory action research projects
• 30:00 The Indonesian People’s Tribunals
• 34:00 “Indonesia’s Shrinking Civic Space for Protests and Digital Activism.” Usman Hamid and Ary Hermawan. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. November 17, 2020.
• 34:00-35:00 “Why Indonesia’s omnibus bill will not create jobs and only strengthen the oligarchy.” Aulia Nastiti. The Conversation. October 20, 2020.
• Chitalkar, Poorvi. How legal empowerment efforts are fighting repression and deepening democracy (Grassroots Justice Network, 2024).

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes from Grassroots Justice

Episode 3: YLBHI, “From Regime to Rendang”

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:00:00] This is A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes of Grassroots Justice. And today, we’re joined by Jackie Sofia, our managing producer.

Jackie Sofia, Managing Producer [00:00:09] Hey, Jackie.

Jackie Sofia, Managing Producer [00:00:10] Hi, Poorvi. So I wanted to come onto the podcast today just to say a little something before the episode begins. At this point, if you’ve listen to the past couple stories, you know that strategies for social justice and food recipes share a lot. And one thing we’ve noticed in particular is that some of the greatest recipes require time and patience. Sometimes while we’re cooking, you know, we wonder whether it’s worth the time and effort. We can lose our appetites in the process, pouring so much of ourselves into this dish that it just drains us. And we know that many justice defenders around the world right now, they’re feeling this way today. People in countries from Myanmar to Argentina and here in the United States, we’re watching progress slow down or even stall. Maybe some people feel things are moving backwards. But the reality is this: progress takes time. It doesn’t always move in a straight line or in the way we want it to. And the times of patience and waiting, they’re never just that. Instead, they’re opportunities for reflection, for re-strategizing. It can give us a new perspective. And in those moments, maybe we can look at it as a recipe. And if we don’t get it right the first time, there’s always the chance to try it again differently. And today’s episode is a good reminder of this. Okay, On to our show.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:02:06] Rendang is the most delicious dish in Indonesia. I think in the world also if I’m not mistaken. Maybe five grade. You know, Rendang, it is- the way it is cooking, this is very long. It takes long hours for cooking, like nine hours to become really, really delicious. Rendang.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:02:24] This is Rakhma. She works at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. Y-L-B-H-I. And you’ll hear us call it YLBHI throughout this episode.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:02:36] As facilitator, YLBHI, we try to combine all of the ingredients, it’s also spices, into one. And we cook it very slowly and we just stay there because it cannot be- after you put all of these ingredients and you just go. No, it’s not like that, because the coconut milk, will separate. So you have to still stand. You have to still stir- stir all of the ingredients, also the beef itself, until it is cooked. And once you- you’re not patient about what you are cooking, then all is gone.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:03:14] Sometimes the cooker, he or she will lost their own appetite because the long time that they already been through while processing the dish.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:25] And this is Pratiwi, also from YLBI. Like Rakhma, she knows what it means to be a patient cook.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:03:33] But the cooker will be happy when the dish is served to other people and they can enjoy the food.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:03:42] In this episode we follow the story of the farmers of Bandungan and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation or YLBHI. We learn how a small rural farming community whose land had been seized by a military dictatorship in the 1960s organized, stood up for their rights and in this process built unshakable community power that continues to fuel the fight for democracy in Indonesia today. Stay with us. This is A Common Pot, a podcast where we explore stories and recipes for social justice and systems change from around the world.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:04:46] Hi, everyone. I’m Pratiwi. I work in Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.  It’s kind of a foundation that give a structural legal aid services to the poor, marginalized, and the oppressed. And I’m here responsible for the research and organizational development.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:05:11] For my role as well, as the member of Knowledge Management Team Assembly. And I have to manage sources of knowledge in our office to be translated into advocacy, into new strategy of advocacy.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:05:30] YLBHI was established in the midst of a brutal dictatorship. In 1965, a military coup took over the leadership of Indonesia, led by General Suharto. From 1965 until 1998, the Suharto regime was marked by deadly repression, authoritarianism and corruption. This period of authoritarian rule was coined the New Order. In 1971, following the military coup, YLBHI was founded. Back then, not many could have predicted the central role that this organization would play in Indonesian history in terms of struggles for agrarian reform, labor rights and democracy itself.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:06:14] What we are doing is called a structural approach. During that time we start to call our legal aid as a structural legal aid.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:06:24] In basic terms, legal aid is when a lawyer gives legal services to poor clients at either low or no cost to the client. But what YLBHI was doing was much more than that. They were providing structural legal aid.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:06:40] In 1970s, we are not the first legal aid organization, actually, but our approach really different with other legal aid organizations, because we understand the context of the regime at that time. The poor people, is not poor because of their laziness. The poor people or the marginalized or the vulnerable community in Indonesia until todays, they are being oppressed not because they are poor economically, but also there’s a superstructure- superstructure that make them under pressure, that make them oppressed, that make them experience the injustice at the grassroots level. The way we do our legal aid is to involve our client, to involve the grassroot, to involve the community. And we call it since the very beginning, as the critical legal education. Or nowadays we call it critical legal empowerment, or legal empowerment. We believe that the justice- the people will receive the justice if they are empowered and they can raise their own voice and they can fight for their rights.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:08:02] And so YLBHI’s main goal became to transform the superstructure causing the injustices that people in Indonesia faced. They didn’t just want to solve individual cases of injustice at the ground level. They set their eyes on something much bigger. The rule of law and democracy.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:08:20] Since that time, we also try to influence how the government of Indonesia establish this democratic state, or country, and we are developing our idea or our imagination about how it’s supposed to be as a democratic state and also the rule of law state.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:08:44] Building democracy is a long and difficult struggle. But YLBHI was strategic. First, they recognized that building a vast movement requires decentralization. They established 18 local chapters that were able to respond to the needs of grassroots communities in different parts of Indonesia. This decentralization encouraged leadership and empowerment at the local level. It also safeguarded against the risk of destabilizing the entire movement in one blow. If one organization was shut down by the regime, others could still carry the torch.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:09:23] The regime really oppressed the grassroots movement- the civil society. We as a legal aid organization understand that the risk or the attack it’s also bigger to the civil society organization and most of the civil society organization is under attack and they are stopped. So at that time, the thought of our former lawyers was how to spread out the risk. Actually, this is kind of the strategy of safeguarding for the organization, but also for the movement. So we spread out the risk to other civil society organizations that we established.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:10:14] YLBHI’s second strategy was to create formal institutions at the national level, which would provide more structure to the movement and sustain momentum over the long term.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:10:25] We were creating the civil society organization that support social changes such as Indonesian Corruption Watch, Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, and also National Law Reform Consortium. And then the most important thing, because the media- the mainstream media were under the regime control, we also built our own media office. We call it Voice of Human Rights media office.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:11:00] And it set YLBHI up for what was coming next. In 1996, an economic crisis hit Indonesia. It was a period of economic decline and unrest. And as a student led movement rose up with the ambition of toppling the dictatorship, YLBHI saw this as an opportunity and transformed itself into a hub for the pro-democracy movement.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:11:27] People call it at that time as the Locomotive of Democracy, because our office is the main place to consolidate the civil society movement, the grassroots movement at that time. And in this Reform Era from 1998 to today’s situation, or today’s time, we call it as our strategic role. And in this time, we do a lot of intervention on law and policy and also institutions that support democracy and human rights. And we support how to open the public sphere to encourage people participation.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:12:11] In 1998, Indonesia’s pro-democracy movement forced Suharto to resign.

[Archival Tape] [00:12:17] After 33 years of  power, President Suharto finally resigned. In a brief and apologetic statement. Before he’d even finished speaking, jubilation erupted at parliament.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:12:28] As the locomotive of democracy, YLBHI’s decentralized model helped encourage public participation across the country in shaping democracy for the next era, The Reform Era. With the start of the Reform Era, victims of Suharto’s brutal dictatorship saw an opening, a chance to reclaim their rights. This was especially the case for local farming communities. They wanted to reclaim the land that had been grabbed by Suharto’s regime and sold off to corporate entities in the 60s and 70s. And at this time, a community of farmers in the Bandungan province in Central Java gathered together and they decided to take steps to reclaim their own ancestral land. Bandungan is located in the highlands of a district in Central Java called Semarang. The people of Bandungan have been farmers for generations. In Javanese culture, the land is more than just a way of earning income. It is woven into the fabric of their very existence. However, according to the government of Indonesia, the land was not theirs.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:13:52] We think that, what’s the land means for them? It means their livelihood and their root of family. Their ancestors already owned the land, already occupied the land. So they believe that the land is their rights. The land also means for them their livelihood. All the people who will stay in Bandungan, they work as farmers. So we understand what it means when the farmer has no land. They only becoming laborer of the farm. But in other perspective, some of them they hold the local belief as we know it, as Kejawen. In Kejawen beliefs, they believe that the land is also part of their house of worship and it consists of the historical – about their ancestor, and then the second – about their livelihood, and then third is about their belief. So they are reclaiming their rights, their elders’ right, who occupied the land that being took over by the military and then suddenly changed to the corporation that we call it Kartasura Company.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:15:18] In 1973 when their sacred land was taken from them during Suharto’s land grabbing spree, it was then granted to a commercial plantation company called Kartasura. At first, the certificate of cultivation from the agency gave this company permission to only use the land for growing plants for the purpose of making perfumes.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:15:42] But they abandoned that. And after that, they built like a farm, animal farm on the plantation. Horse, and also cows, and it is polluted. Yeah. The animal farm polluted the water for consumption- the drinking water for consumption for people, for the farmers living around the plantation area. And because of the pollution, the farmers started to protest to the government. And the National Land Agency actually knows that the plantation abandoned the land, and also instead they built animal farm on the plantation. But they didn’t want to revoke the right of commercial cultivation at the first time. But because of the protests of the farmers, they- they started to examine, they started to go for visiting the village and then try to check everything.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:16:48] The National Land Agency finally saw for themselves what the farmers had been telling them. And in 2000, the provincial legislative office submitted a recommendation letter to revoke the right of commercial cultivation from this company.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:17:02] And it is worked. Then they finally- they revoked the right of commercial cultivation itself in 2001.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:17:09] Now that they successfully ended the cultivation license, the farmers wanted to reclaim their ownership of the land. And so, they organized themselves.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:17:19] So the establishment of the farmer organization was the manifestation of their seriousness- the Bandungan farmers seriousness to carry out this struggle. They thought that they can do it by themselves because they already consolidized. They have their own organization, they also connected with other farmer organization in Central Java called ORTAJA. And they believe that this farmer organization can handle it by themselves.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:17:55] They went to the National Land Agency with the request for a certificate that would give them the rights to the land. This was the same agency that had just ruled in the farmers favor by revoking the cultivation rights of the Kartasura Company. And yet this new request was rejected. From there, they protested and the government responded by telling them to lawyer up.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:18:21] But the government really ensured that the farmer organization will lost this case. So the government said to them, “Look for your legal assistant, our legal representative, because you will lose this case!”

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:18:38] While all of this is going on, one of YLBHI’s local civil society chapters, the Semarang Legal Aid, was watching.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:18:46] At the same time, Semarang Legal Aid read a news about the reclaiming action about the protests of the Bandungan farmers. And then they came to the village to offer legal assistance to the leader of the farmer. But at that time, the Semarang Legal Aid staff, they were rejected by the farmers- by the head of the farmers. Because the farmers say that, “We don’t need your legal assistance. We can do by ourselves.”

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:19:19] Among the farmers organizing in Bandungan, there was a local leader who emerged, a farmer named Sutrisno.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:19:27] Yes, a very tough character. Many farmers, all of the members of the local organization have the respect of this leader. And when he asks the farmers to do A or B or C, they will follow.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:19:44] And so without the assistance of Semarang Legal Aid, Sutrisno and the other farmers decided to organize and pursue rights to the land on their own. They began to organize and to protest the rejection from the National Land Agency. Protest felt like the best approach to get the attention of the government and bring the greater farming communities’ attention to their shared struggle.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:20:17] In the midst of their organizing efforts, life continued. One day while in the market with his wife Surami, Sutrisno suddenly found himself surrounded by police. He was taken into custody, leaving his wife alone in the market not knowing what had happened or where her husband was being taken. Word soon spread back to Surami that her husband and some others had been charged as being criminals of the state.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:20:45] So the community actually when it happened, the criminalization happened, the community was shocked because they never thought it will happen to their community. And the important thing that happened at that time, they tried to consolidate. They shocked and they felt afraid, but they’re not stopped there. Actually besides the criminalization- Sutrisno being criminalized at that time, actually, what we call it, stigmatizing or the Black Campaign also happen to all the farmers who try to occupy the land. They stigmatized as a communist.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:21:33] In Indonesia, being marked as a communist invokes memories of a dark history. In 1965, when the Indonesian government was overthrown by the Suharto led military coup, anyone who opposed the military dictatorship was accused of being a communist. Those accused included union members, intellectuals, ethnic Chinese and farmers. In addition to land grabs, Suharto’s regime directed and carried out the mass murder of approximately 1 million accused communists across Indonesia. From then on, to be called a communist was having a target on your back.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:22:15] Surami also, I think in this Bandungan case play a really important role. While Sutrisno being jailed by the police, Surami actually quietly she and some of farmers’ wife- others farmers’ wife- actually in silence, they learned how to fight from their husbands. For them, it also mean their knowledge, women knowledge, women livelihood. They already built their own knowledge on land, how they work on the land, how they cultivate the land, how they built their culture on the land. So it means not only livelihood, but also means women’s knowledge and women’s culture. That knowledge when they cultivate the land become their power. So when the land taken from them, it means that their knowledge taken from them.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:23:14] The local YLBHI staff of Semarang Legal Aid met at Surami’s home and helped strategize about how to fight the case against Sutrisno and the others who had been arrested. This was the beginning of a partnership between the farmers of Bandungan and Semarang Legal Aid. First, they organized a protest with Semarang Legal Aid providing legal knowledge and support about how to protest within their rights in a way that would put pressure on the police to release the arrested farmers and avoid others getting arrested in the process. It was Surami who led the charge.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:23:51] She started to organize all the farmers there to come to the police station, to come to the police office to protest for the release of the three leaders that have been arrested by the police before. And at the same time also to organize, to consolidate the other farmers that are still outside and give support for the three leaders at the police office. Because of the protest of the farmer in front of the police officers, then the three leaders were released.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:24:31] And the protest worked. Semarang Legal Aid provided critical legal education to the community on the criminal cases against the arrested farmers. The objective was to get charges against the farmers dropped, but also make an example of their case. These were people who were claiming legal rights to their ancestral land. They were not criminals.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:24:54] Our lawyers did gave them legal critical education about what is the criminal code first that used to criminalize Sutrisno. They learned each word how the case theory being established by the police, how to turn over the case. We learned that together with the community. After the Sutrisno case goes to the court, the judge’s verdict say that verdict was “Free Sutrisno.” And then after that, they are continuing because they are really get their self esteem because the judge has already released Sutrisno and there is no proof that Sutrisno was wrong. It’s kind of a new power for them.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:25:52] With this newfound confidence, the farmers worked with Semarang Legal Aid to help develop a strategy to fight for a certificate to reclaim rights to the land, made up of two organizing tactics. First, to map the agrarian conflicts throughout Central Java. This would help link the struggles and create connections for peer learning among communities. Once they mapped all the communities, they were able to consolidate community power and form the Provincewide Central Java Farmers Organization.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:26:25] I remember that at that time, the farmers not only fight for their own case, for their own rights, they escalate the struggle not only for the land rights, but also push the government to change the agrarian system. The agrarian law. Yeah, this kind of consolidation, it’s kind of escalate consolidation and it gives more power to the local. It’s kind of like a cycle, I think. In the one side they try to connect because they are feel not strong enough. But when they’re connected to other, actually the effect is strengthening them.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:27:16] The second tactic took the form of direct action demonstrations or protest. The farmers strength was their people power, their ability to organize. But they were missing a key ingredient.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:27:29] They already have the people power by the consolidation of farmers’ organization. They have a good knowledge how to do the movement. They also realize about their basis rights, about the lands- it’s a historical basis. But then, they should know how the law itself work. So our Semarang local chapter fill that gap. So we give legal empowerment to them. At the same time, some of the farmers being criminalized. At that situation- critical situation- our lawyers play an important role to give them legal assistance. Not in the core cases of the land cases, but in other cases of criminal case. We taught them how the criminal law worked on this case, not only the land reform law or agrarian law work on this case, but also the criminal or penal code, how it works in building successful social movement or people movements. It cannot only works in one sphere, like only the people power, but the legal power also can complete the movement, or the power, to fight for the rights of the people.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:29:06] Years passed as the farmers worked with Semarang Legal Aid. The case ended up going to the administrative court system, where Semarang Legal Aid had to take a role in assisting the farmers as well. But finally, in 2021…

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:29:20] Finally the Supreme Court they said that the National Land Agency was right and the land finally can be redistributed to the farmers in 2021.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:29:33] Today, with support from the Grassroots Justice Network, YLBI is taking their experience of combining the power of law and the power of people in the struggle of the Bandungan farmers and finding ways to apply that model to other struggles for justice.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:29:49] During this three years of participatory action research, actually our local chapter in- not only in Semarang- what we are talking about is the strengthening of Semarang or Central Java Farmers Organization. But nowadays they are escalating the consolidation to other provincial level in East Java. So they are still in the progress of fighting to change the agrarian law this time.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:30:22] YLBHI’s efforts to continue building a just and democratic Indonesia go beyond the regional level. Nationally, they are finding common ground between different struggles for justice – students, labor, farmers, fisher people – and they’re advancing the movement by building what they call the People’s Tribunal.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:30:45] So these kind of People’s Tribunal, we are trying to just to facilitate the space for them to meet each other, to learn from each other. But the most important thing: to build their own case to sue the government, to sue the state. So that’s what we are doing in this People’s Tribunal. We want to consolidate the community power, the people power. But in other side, we also want to establish the new mechanism of democracy actually.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:31:24] At the moment, Indonesia doesn’t have a constitutional complaint mechanism in their court system. What this means is that there is no way for a person to submit a complaint to the state to argue that their fundamental rights have been violated by a state authority, say the police. The People’s Tribunal would help to change that.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:31:44] For me, it feels like success when the community understand their rights and they’re decided what to do. I think that’s the success for me. Yeah. That’s simple, because- and they keep fighting for their rights. They’re not stop. Even if the legal system not giving them the good feedback or the good result, but they keep moving. Or, it feels like success when the community can cross beyond borders to support the wider movement.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:32:23] YLBHI has learned that building community power is the key to changing law in Indonesia and successfully building a stronger democracy.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:32:32] First of all, we used to legal empowerment, we organized the people so they know the law, they can use the law. And on the other side, we also cannot hide from the legal action. We use that as a strategic litigation. If the farmers have been criminalized, then the legal action should be taken.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:32:52] YLBHI believes that law and organizing must go hand in hand and that institutions can help cement incremental wins into place. People can drop in and out of a movement, but institutions provide a structure that can sustain movements in the long term. And while that is true, they are also grappling with the complexity of institution building and the risk of losing sight of what’s at the heart of the struggle.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:33:18] We must be really careful so that the organization or the organization formed, does not fall into rigid institutionalization, because it can eliminate the movement itself. So it sounds like paradox. The movement of the farmers’ really radical. But when they fall into the institutionalization, the rigid of institutionalization, it kinds of make them forget what is the core basis of the organization- of [what] the community struggling for. Its kind of status quo, you know, the status quo of the movement.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:33:58] Although Indonesia has moved on in some ways from the days of Suharto’s New Order regime, it is still an uphill battle to build democratic systems that ensure public participation.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:34:11] Right now, the other type of New Order is already here, where our government, the previous period- 2014, Joko Widodo also the regime. Also they practice the same model of New Order, even worse, because they reject public participation in making law; there are some laws that contradict with human rights. And also it is not based on the people’s need. Instead, this is on the need of the model of investment. So they are trying- they try to attract many investors into Indonesia- come to Indonesia. And they publish so many regulations, like law on job creation bill, or on mineral and coal mining and many other laws that put people in the bottom. Violation, criminalization. Also, killing happens everywhere against public defender. So we see that expression- a public expression through gathering demonstrations. So we see that the decline of the democracy still ongoing until then.

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:35:33] There’s also the question of what happens as a younger generation comes into the picture and what that looks like for the future of community power in Indonesia.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:35:44] I see that this is someplace worrying because, not only in Bandungan, but also in other cases, that the youth mostly they don’t want to become a farmer. And if they don’t want to become a farmer who is the next to continue their fight, to continue their struggle for the land? I also see from maybe from YLBHI this is the big challenge. If we fail to transfer our knowledge from us to our junior, how it will become?

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:36:22] As new generations come up, movements must find ways to evolve and change, all while ensuring that people are continuing to absorb and carry on the knowledge that has been passed down. And after more than 20 years of fighting, although the farmers of Bandungan have the rights to their land now, farmers across Indonesia are still struggling to reclaim what was lost more than 60 years ago. To Rakhma, it is like the Indonesian recipe of Rendang.

Rakhma Mary Herwati, YLBHI [00:36:52] And this is I describe how the community organizations do legal empowerment, how advocacy that conducted by YLBHI can also involve of their farmers and also community look like. So, if we seriously put all of the ingredients, they have critical awareness already with different degrees- the law awareness, the critical awareness and then maybe you can also advance how we can we manage all of these three to be together: how can we put the leader of the community to be a leader and how we as a facilitator have full knowledge, some also skill, information, good communication and many things. And at last we will get a very very delicious Rendang.

Pratiwi Febry, YLBHI [00:37:42] So, I mean, like maybe we don’t eat the dishes. We don’t- In our generation, maybe we don’t see the result, but we can see when in another time, in another generation, they can feel the result of our struggle. So it’s a kind of marathon run. You need a long energy and a long endurance and resilience. So make sure you can also have a power to eat the dishes so you can continue the delicious and the nutritious dishes. I think that’s from me. Thank you. [Laughs]

Poorvi Chitalkar, Host [00:38:42] This episode was produced by me, Poorvi Chitalkar. Our managing producer is Jackie Sofia. Audio Engineering and Sound Design by Mohamad Khreizat. Editorial Support by the Namati Communications Team. Additional support by Anuradha Joshi and Marlon Manuel. A very special thanks to Pratiwi Febry and Sitti Rakhma Mary Herwati and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation for sharing their story with us. Thanks also to Canada’s International Development Research Centre, whose support makes this work possible. A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes of Grassroots Justice is a production of Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network. To join the network, head to www.grassrootsjusticenetwork.org and follow us on social media on YouTube,  X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, at GrassrootsJN.

The post A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes for Grassroots Justice | Podcast | Episode 3 – From Regime to Rendang feat. YLBHI appeared first on Namati.

You can also listen to this episode on YouTube.

SUMMARY

Change is inevitable. However, who gets to experience change when poverty is the accepted status quo? How can the tides of change move in favor of the poor? And what keeps everything from going back to the way things were before?

In Nairobi’s informal settlement of Mukuru, Jane Weru and Patrick Njoroge of Akiba Mashinani Trust must find answers to these questions while working alongside a community of 300,000 people living in poverty, without access to basic services and teetering on the brink of eviction.

Special thanks to Jane Weru, Patrick Njoroge and AMT- Akiba Mashinani Trust in Nairobi, Kenya.

Support for “A Common Pot” is provided by IDRC Canada. 

Like this episode? Leave us a review on Youtube!

Subscribe to A Common Pot on Spotify and Youtube.

Follow the Grassroots Justice Network on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube @grassrootsjn, and share your thoughts with us by emailing community@namati.org. 

Listen to Episode 1 here!

SHOW NOTES

• 00:00-01:00 Dorice Bosibori (Muungano wa Wanavijiji – 14 March 2016)
• 00:00-01:00 Mukuru
• 4:00 Jane Weru, Executive Director, AMT
• 4:00 Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT)
• 5:00 Muungano wa Wanavijiji
• 5:00 Patrick Njoroge, Deputy Director, AMT
• 9:00 Katiba Institute
• 11:00 “the poverty penalty”
• 12:00 Grassroots Justice Network membership
• 13:00 AMT’s research project, Unlocking the Poverty Penalty and Upscaling the Respect for Rights in Kenya’s Informal Settlements. (IDRC – 2020)
• 14:00 Mukuru Special Planning Area (SPA)
• 22:00 Jane’s UN Habitat lecture, “Too Pressed to Wait” (UN-HABITAT)
• 23:00 Muungano Alliance
• 25:00 Understanding the Special Planning Area (SPA) and community participation organizing structure(Muungano wa Wanavijiji)
• 27:00 Voices of community mobilizers – Christine Mwelu (Muungano wa Wanavijiji)
• 27:00 Voices of community mobilizers – David Mwangi (Muungano wa Wanavijiji)
• 30:00 Mau Mau fighters and the Mau Mau Uprising (South Africa History Online)
• 31:00 The Mukuru People’s Manifesto (Ruben Centre – 2022)
• 34:00 Access to education in Mukuru (Ruben Centre)
• 37:00 Kenyan githeri
• 39:00 Muungano Youth – Tuungane (KYC.TV Official Video)

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT (coming soon)

The post A Common Pot: Stories and Recipes for Grassroots Justice | Podcast | Episode 2 – Leave No One Behind ft. AMT appeared first on Namati.

But it doesn’t end there. Around the world, legal empowerment organizations are experimenting with ways to translate grassroots efforts to address specific rights violations into broader systemic reforms that advance justice for everyone. These transformative changes address the underlying causes of injustice by creating new rights and stopping patterns of abuse. Legal empowerment methods offer powerful pathways to activate existing rights and turn the sometimes rusty wheels within public institutions. This can include a range of strategies: joint or collective cases that bundle multiple grievances together, litigation, direct action campaigns,
collaboration with state agencies, and more. The creative use of legal and political strategies rooted in organizing makes legal empowerment well positioned to engage the courts, administrative agencies, and legislators. The political and institutional context in a particular place shapes opportunities for advancing change. As we experiment, we can compare notes to better understand what works, when, and why.

In 2018, the Grassroots Justice Network launched a collaborative effort to create a learning agenda for the field. The learning agenda focuses on the most pressing issues facing the global movement for grassroots justice – the frontiers where collective inquiry can generate new solutions to the challenges that keep us at night. Action research projects led by members of the Grassroots Justice Network across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia are generating powerful insights on how legal empowerment strategies can build community power and achieve changes in laws and institutions that deepen democratic governance. This publication draws on insights from across the action research projects to illustrate pathways to systems change.

The post Grassroots Justice: Pathways to Systems Change will be re-released on Thursday, June 12, 2025. Check back then for the updated report! appeared first on Namati.

In this Telegraph essay, Vivek Maru Namati CEO discusses the importance of the carbon justice principles. Read the full article here.
 
Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network have united around 6 principles necessary to make carbon projects fair. We have defined these principles by drawing on experience responding to carbon projects in 21 countries. We will campaign fiercely to bring the Carbon Justice Principles to life at the community, national, and global levels.
 
Join the campaign.

The post To save carbon projects, make them fair appeared first on Namati.