Legal Observer Training Update

TAKING A BREAK FROM TRAINING NEW LEGAL OBSERVERS

At our recent Spring Gathering, where we met to address some of the issues facing Green and Black Cross as an organisation, GBC agreed we need to pause some of the work we’ve been doing. First among the things we’re going to pause is training new Legal Observers (LOs).

Why are you pausing training new LOs?

Reason 1: For a long time now, GBC has been training 15-20 Legal Observers a month. Very few (1-2 a month) of these trained Legal Observers actually start observing regularly, despite a very high number of protests nationally.

Reason 2: Our Training Collective is low on capacity. GBC is an anarchist collective run by a small number of volunteers with varying capacity. Right now that capacity is low.

But we really need more LOs!

While we won’t be training new Legal Observers during this period, we do encourage the many people who are already trained, but not observing at the moment, to contact ILON so we can find you a buddy to observe with. Just send a quick email saying ‘I’d like to start LOing’ and we’ll take it from there.

But we REALLY REALLY need more LOs!

We know that us pausing LO training might make movements worried that there aren’t enough Legal Observers out there. But we know (because we have trained hundreds of them) there are very many trained Legal Observers who are not currently observing, and we advise movements to find, support and encourage these people to come and observe if they can.

What if we can’t get an LO?

Existing LOs will still be around, and our call outs will carry on as usual, so please do continue to contact ILON if you’d like a Legal Observer at your action. But if no LOs can make it to your action, don’t panic! We encourage those who are organising actions to download, print and distribute bustcards, spread the 5 Key Messages and observe arrests when they happen. Anyone can do that – no permission is needed.

Will you offer any other trainings?

We will continue to offer regular Know Your Rights trainings. At the moment, we are able to offer a couple a month, most months. All the info from the KYR trainings (and lots more) is on our website, and you are welcome to call the Protest Support Line on 07946541511 with specific questions. We know there are many actions planned for trans and disabled liberation in the coming months, we have advice for these situations on our web site. The Training Collective is also working on specific resources to support trans and disabled protesters.

How long will it be before you start training new Legal Observers again?

At the moment, we don’t know, but we intend to continue when our capacity permits.