Know Your Rights Cards and Training
They count on you not knowing your rights. When you know them, you can exercise them.
Pressure addressed: leadership, displacement
Time: Weeks to develop and deploy training
People: Community members, trained facilitators
Resources: Legal guidance, training materials, facilitators
About this tool
You have rights. But rights you don't know about are rights you can't exercise. When the police stop you. When immigration comes to your workplace. When the landlord threatens. Knowledge is the first line of defence.
How to do it
Get legal guidance
Work with lawyers to ensure information is accurate and jurisdiction-specific. Wrong information is dangerous.
Identify priority situations
Where does your community most need rights knowledge? Police encounters? Immigration? Housing? Workplace?
Develop accessible materials
Wallet cards, graphics, materials in community languages. Practical formats people will actually use.
Train facilitators
Community members who can deliver training. Multiplier model for broad reach.
Practice under pressure
Role-play scenarios. Stress inoculation. Knowing rights intellectually is different from exercising them when frightened.
Before you start
- Legal guidance on accurate information
- Training capacity
Implementation guidance
Starting point
- Legally reviewed, jurisdiction-specific information
- Materials in community languages
- Regular training sessions with role-play
- Wallet cards distributed widely
- Trained facilitators in community
- Track record of rights successfully exercised
Building on it
- Basic rights information compiled with legal input
- Some training delivered
- Materials available
Advanced practice
- Inaccurate legal information shared
- Training without practice/stress inoculation
- Materials in English only for non-English community
Wrong legal information can get people arrested, detained, or deported. Knowledge without practice fails under stress, people forget everything when frightened. Materials people can't read don't help them.
Examples
Houston Latino community
Know Your Rights training before immigration enforcement
Trained workers exercised rights during raids, two released within 48 hours while untrained were detained for weeks