Build Power: Community Paralegals in Puerto Rico

The third cycle of our community paralegals just wrapped up. We are thrilled to share this initiative's progress while highlighting the principles of a program designed to socialize legal knowledge, tools, and access to public policy transformation. 

As Puerto Rico - and the end of the world- face increasing inequality and distrust in traditional institutions, projects that attempt to break the monopoly of power are crucial. Community Paralegals break the hegemony of lawyers to acknowledge the capacity of community members to become legal workers and design and push their legal strategies.

The Community Paralegal project integrates legal education with policy and advocacy training, following many other international initiatives. Community stakeholders learn and apply skills to face their major legal threats. In our case, CP chose climate justice and housing. As this cycle ends, we have 20 community leaders from Loíza trained and ready to promote storytelling, media outreach, legislative training, advocacy, writing, and public speaking. They have pushed for changes in flood management plans and are working on advocacy to ensure access to recovery mitigation funds. Most of all, they have gained recognition within the advocacy landscape as a group: the Community Paralegals.

We will continue to see the results of this effort in the months and years to come. Transformation towards social justice needs time and long term commitment. We are grateful for your continuous support.