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Show Notes
GUEST: RAYMOND PERRIER - DIRECTOR DENIS HURLEY CENTRE
In 2022 Denis Hurley Centre director Raymond Perrier said that the centre will soon be launching a regular Street Law clinic in conjunction with the UKZN Law Clinic at the Denis Hurley Centre. Bringing lawyers to the streets of Durban. We find out how it is going
AS part of the fourth year of their studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) law students are encouraged to do a Street Law project – to get a better understanding of what the law is like when it hits the streets. In 2018, they started going to the Denis Hurley Centre as an option, and post-Covid, the centre has welcomed new students back this year.
According to the Denis Hurley Centre’s director, Raymond Perrier, 20 students visited the centre two days each week from April to June, and another 20 are now completing their outreach at the centre from August to October.
“The students engage with the homeless people in Paddy Kearney Way between breakfast and lunch. But they also help prepare and serve the meals; this is an important way of them building the trust of our visitors,” said Perrier.
Perrier says that one of the hardest lessons for the students to learn is that most of the time they cannot solve problems – but they can be valuable just by being willing to listen.
“They work in pairs, and there is always at least one Zulu speaker in each pair to facilitate easy communication. Where appropriate, they can give advice on legal matters and also teach people about their rights. In some cases, they take a witness statement of an incident – or help a homeless person to learn what makes for a good witness statement in the future.”