Our 2023/24 MA students complete South Africa placement fieldwork
In December our students completed their placement fieldwork in Cape Town, South Africa as part of their MA programme at York.
One student group has been working with ILRIG, a local NGO, on women’s leadership in the Cisse Gool House occupation. Taking place on the grounds of a former hospital, occupiers are struggling for the right to housing in the city. The fieldwork will be used to develop a report on the challenges and opportunities for women’s leadership.
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York students at the Cisse Gool House occupation.Another student group has been working with the Politics and Urban Governance research group (University of the Western Cape) to undertake a training needs assessment with African human rights defenders. The assessment will be used for developing a training programme that forms part of the creation of a new ‘Africa hub’ at UWC for the protection of human rights defenders at risk.
In 2024/25, placements in South Africa and Colombia will be open to both MA students and LLM students in International Human Rights Law and Practice. For students beginning their studies with us in the academic year 2024/25 we anticipate offering placements in South Africa with organisations that include the following list:
- The Women’s Legal Centre, which focuses on strategic litigation and the rights of women
- Scalabrini Centre focusing on migration, refugees, and displaced people.
- International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG) and the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU) for a joint project on the rights of farmworkers in South Africa’s vineyards
- University of the Western Cape (Politics and Urban Governance research group; Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies).
- Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), which focuses on the decriminalisation of sex work
- Museums and memory in Cape Town (slavery, apartheid, reconciliation after conflict)
For Colombia placements this year, an LLM placement group worked remotely with the Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR) on a project on the independence of judges and prosecutors in Colombia. The full range of placement options in South Africa and Colombia will be published on our programme websites in due course.