Redfern Legal Centre’s Historical Accomplishments

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Redfern Legal Centre, Annual Report: July 1991 – June 1992 (Redfern: Redfern Legal Centre, 1992).
The Hon. Gough Whitlam, Clare Petre and Valent Santalab cut the cake at RLC’s 15th birthday in March 1992
For the past semester, I’ve been working with the Redfern Legal Centre to assist them in creating a Historical Achievements page for their website. I’ve mainly been going through their annual reports from the last 38 years but I’ve also had a look through trove and Hansard for some newspaper articles and parliamentary comments. I’ve really enjoyed reading about all the amazing work the Centre has done.
Just a few examples of their achievements include:
– Publishing numerous helpful legal guides for the community on a wide variety of different issues from debt to share housing
– Raising over $16,000 in fundraising for the Legal Aid Centre in Aceh following the 2005 tsunami
– Assisting and representing international students, postgraduate students and TAFE students in countless casework wins
– Presenting hundreds of community legal sessions
– Establishing programs such as the Sydney Women’s Domestic Violence Assistance Scheme
These are truly just an extremely tiny sample of RLC’s accomplishments. So far I’ve selected roughly 34 achievements to display on the webpage and I’ve found photos, graphs, case studies and articles from the annual reports to make the page entertaining and engaging.
I chose to work with Redfern Legal Centre because it has a rich history which deserves to be heard now more than ever. With recent government cutbacks to community legal centres, including RLC, this is the perfect time for the centre to remind the community and the government of its incredible impact throughout its almost 40 year history. I hope that the webpage I create will inspire readers to donate to the centre in order to ensure it can continue to do this amazing work long into the future.
If anyone is interested in knowing more about the centre or in donating to help them in providing legal services to the most disadvantaged in our community, please follow this link: http://rlc.org.au/