Karoo Centre for Human Rights Technology
Strategy Development (Project Details)
Planning for effective employment of
technology for paralegal advice offices in the Karoo region of South
Africa.
Service and Program Area:
Centre of Excellence
Status: Completed (June
2005 - January 2006)
Contact Person: Rudi von Staden
Supporters: The
Finnish Embassy in South Africa
Partners: The Karoo
Centre for Human Rights
An introductory technology planning project
with the Karoo
Centre for Human Rights (KCHR) in January 2005 identified that
encouraging technology uptake within the paralegal advice offices
they support could improve the effectiveness of the advice offices, as
well as their efficiency in providing services to their local
communities. This project was established as a result of that
conclusion. With the financial support of the Finnish Embassy,
Ungana-Afrika conducted surveys of the needs of the advice offices,
visited a number of advice offices in the rural Karoo region and held
further discussions with KCHR. The result of this process was a
Technology Strategy document that showed that there were a number of
technology interventions related to training, administration,
infrastructure and communication that could well have a positive impact
on the functioning of the advice offices if they were properly
implemented.
Detailed Project Info
Context
Paralegals, working from advice offices,
play a vital role in
providing access to legal advice in their communities. Although they
are not legally qualified, they are accredited to assist community
members with legal matters, such as arbitrating in labour disputes, and
facilitating access to community services, such as government grants.
Generally advice offices are very poorly resourced, and rely on a
handful of donor organisations for funding. There are a few service
providers working with the paralegals to build up their capacity to
service their communities and run their office effectively. One such
organisation is the Karoo Centre for Human Rights (KCHR), who
Ungana-Afrika was first introduced to during an earlier technology
planning project. KCHR works with advice offices in the rural Karoo
region of the Eastern, Western and Northern Cape Provinces. The focus
of this project was to identify the information, communication and
administration needs of the advice offices and determine what
technology interventions might be employed to improve their
effectiveness.
Methodology
Three methods were used to gather
information on the needs of the advice offices. These were:
- A questionnaire was developed and given
to a representative
selection of paralegals gathered for paralegal training. The
questionnaire was used to collect basic demographic information about
the paralegals, and also asked them details about their communication
profile (who, what and how do they communication), information needs,
office infrastructure and service requirements.
- Field visits were conducted to five
advice offices chosen to
represent a broad spectrum of environments. These field visits were
conducted together with Vuyisa Jantjies from KCHR and provided greater
insight into the realities under which the advice offices operated.
These visits included discussions with staff members, staff skills
assessments and technology inventories.
- The results of the questionnaires and
field visits were
discussed further with KCHR to construct a framework for the Technology
Strategy document.
The Technology Strategy was then developed,
which reported on the
findings of the study, and gave further strategic recommendations
related to technology infrastructure, communication, information
access, case management and office administration, technology skills
and capacity, support and sustainability.
Conclusions
The study showed that in general,
- The infrastructure at advice offices is
reasonably good, but Internet connections are scarce
- Advice office communication is mostly
with government
departments, community members, service providers, municipal bodies and
funders. Fax and telephone are the primary methods of communication
- The primary information needs that advice
offices have are
for information on funding opportunities, provision of paralegal
services, effective running of an advice office and government
information
- Technology is used at a very basic level
for administration and case management
- Technology skills are very limited within
the sector
Eleven interventions were recommended by the
Technology Strategy. These were
- Encouraging a standardised technology
environment in advice
offices so that training, support are easier and efficiency improves.
- Ensuring that all advice offices have
working Internet
connections to enable more effective communication and information
access.
- Configuring email addresses for all
advice offices using a
consistent naming convention, and setting up a discussion list to
facilitate internal communication.
- Compiling and sharing a list of online
resources for advice
offices and encouraging service providers to make updated materials
available online.
- Obtaining subscriptions to appropriate
online information sources for the network.
- Building an offline front-end for the
Central Case Management
System (an online case management resource for paralegals developed by
SANGONeT with the support of the CS Mott foundation)
- Encouraging the use of tools that
facilitate effective financial management.
- Developing manuals that guide advice
offices in effective use of technology.
- Developing and sharing templates that
simplify common document creation.
- Including technology training as a key
part of paralegal workshops.
- Arranging service agreements with central
support companies,
and having a resource person to support and encourage technology within
the network.
Shareable Resources
- Paralegal questionnaire
- Technology Strategy document
Lessons
The Technology Strategy that resulted from
this project was
invaluable in establishing the Rural Connectivity Project at a later
stage. The methodology employed was an effective approach for
developing a communication strategy for a spatially distributed network
of relatively small organisations, particularly in rural areas.
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