Human Rights Brigades volunteers work with Panamanian lawyers to provide pro-bono legal consulting through a 7 day brigade in Panama. Human Rights Brigades provides services to remote communities, on a family by family basis. By focusing on the families of one community at a time, volunteers can not only shadow and assist lawyers as they provide legal consulting to community members, but also take an active role in providing legal assistance on a personalized scale. Human Rights Brigades primarily works with remote communities that are under resourced and largely unaware of their legal rights.Volunteers lead legal education workshops tailored to the community on various topics such as: the land titling process, government institutions, family law, property rights, business rights, conflict resolution, etc. Student are able to put their legal research to practice and shadow lawyers in developing solutions to various legal problems. The brigade experience is a life changing experience for both the community members and our student volunteers!
Business Brigades help provide solutions to the community’s economic needs. The target beneficiaries have been previously excluded from formal financial institutions & therefore lacked access to savings and credit opportunities. Beneficiaries tend to have a low level of income, lack of collateral, & low level of education. During the brigade, volunteers divide into small groups to conduct household visits in which they get to know the family, assess each household’s level of financial competency and entrepreneurial aspirations. After the assessments the volunteers provide educational and technical assistance in the form of workshops. Topics range from personal finance to basic accounting and business planning. Additionally, volunteers invest in the community savings and loan (S&L) cooperative by providing seed capital. In turn, the seed capital provides loans to a small business to either expand current operations or pursue a new entrepreneurial opportunity. Working side-by-side with community members affords volunteers the opportunity for cultural exchange, micro-finance, and consulting experience. The households benefit by learning personal financial and business skills and gain access to credit and savings opportunities. Community businesses benefit from the consulting and loans. The community benefits because the profits earned by the S&L stay in the community to be used by the community!