Let’s Grrrowd!

Reflections on the importance of legal action

Taking in all the injustice that is happening around the world still emotionally hits me and too often, really.

This is why I joined the Executive Board of Grrrowd. Grrrowd aims to promote, protect, support and establish social, environmental and economic justice on a local, regional and global level for current and future generations. Coming September we plan to launch our first Grrrowd projects to crowdfund for groundbreaking legal actions against severe violations of social, economic and environmental rights. Below is my blog post that we published on the Grrowd site today. You can continue to read my blog post here or on the Grrrowd site.

Injustice struck me again few days ago, when I read an article in the Huffington Post on the arrest of forest activists in India. Villagers had been peacefully protesting against the build of a coalmine that would destroy the Mahan forest.

The Indian example is just one of many, highlighting indicating what is not good enough in our world. People are trying to create development and improvement, but are not getting through sufficiently. In fact, unfortunately, many who stand up for what is right often get penalised for their actions. Justice is not served sufficiently. It saddens me.

And yet, I am convinced that deep down everyone wants our world to be a socially, economically and environmentally just one. We have seen some advancement in many different areas. Together – people across the world- have done a lot of good, to make this world a better place. Over the last two decades, civil society organisations and international NGOs have put programmes and campaigns together that have contributed to progress. People participated in campaigns, donated, went out into the streets and with the rise of social media, have increasingly become online activists.

There are still many places, however, where we can do better. We are not establishing sufficient change to create the world we want; one with equal human rights, companies that act sustainably, durable products, closed-loop systems that create no waste, and laws and processes that will ensure a liveable world for our children and our children’s children. 

The fact that the law is not upheld, often even when legal frameworks have been agreed, is a big issue. We accept situations that we know are not right. We still over fish, we still allow women and children to work under desperate circumstances, we still pollute, we still put old-fashioned energy agreements in place. And the list goes on…

So, let’s stand up together and take legal action against those powers that do not go by the law/play by the rules. Whether these powers are governments, companies, politicians – we can take legal action against all those that fail to comply with the law. So let’s do it!

With you, Grrrowd intends to support those international organisations that run campaigns in the area of social, environmental and/or economic justice, but do not have the ability to take the route of Lady Justice. We want to make sure that they can also take that route. So, together with you, we aspire to crowd fund the legal parts of their campaigns.

Imagine this world, where everyone lives equitably, in beautiful green surroundings and in peace. You can be part of creating this future. Come and Grrrowd with us!!