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 If you live in a poor, rural community and you get evicted from your home, get treated unfairly by your employer, or if you have trouble accessing a grant, who will you turn to for help?
Access to justice should be available to everyone, according to our Constitution. That is why community advice offices, that give free legal advice to vulnerable and marginalised members of society, are doing such an important job.
“People from poorer communities should be able to seek redress for their problems without feeling intimidated or having to go through heavy bureaucratic processes. At advice offices they can talk to paralegals who really understand their situation,” explains Greg Erasmus, National Coordinator for the National Alliance for the Development of Community Advice Offices (NADCAO).
Organising advice offices
 NADCAO was formed in 2007 to address past fragmentation in the sector. A lack of resources prohibited the sector from resurrecting itself as a key national and provincial stakeholder in providing access to justice for the poor.
“We saw that the funding environment in the sector was changing and that this would lead to its demise,” says Erasmus. “NADCAO was established to galvanise support and ensure the sustainability of community advice offices.”
To give the sector more structure, NADCAO facilitated the formation of provincial advice office forums in all the provinces where such a body was not already operating. NADCAO wants these forums to take responsibility for the sector and to own their future.
Through these formal structures it is now easier to communicate with the more than 230 advice offices across the country.
 Together with NADCAO, the forums are working towards securing accredited training for paralegals. This is also an important issue to advice offices operating on the ground.
Cynthia Bewana, the head of the Jersey Farm Advice and Information Centre in the Eastern Cape says: “The standard of their services improved. There will be uniformity and the standard of all advice offices will be the same.”
At NADCAO’s National Workshop, held recently in Johannesburg, representatives from the provincial forums worked on business plans and budgets and devised their own sustainability strategies.
Bheki Shange, Coordinator for the Gauteng Advice Office Forum says: “NADCAO is doing much to psychologically liberate the paralegals. They are opening doors and saying: ‘Go in there and convince them what you are capable of’”.
Importance of communication  Creative Consulting & Development Works attended the workshop as part of its communications support to NADCAO.
NADCAO recognises the importance of communicating their plans for the institutionalisation and sustainability of the sector.
“Communication is fundamental when you are dealing with 230 advice offices, spread over 9 provinces, that lack access to information,” Greg says. “They need to be informed and advised on issues that affect their future.”
Effective communication will ensure that the paralegals at these offices are on board with the plans and that they are supported by various other stakeholders with an interest in access to justice.
The benefits of institutionalisation and effective communication will trickle down and be felt by the ordinary citizen who is in need of justice.
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