{"id":18300,"date":"2025-09-02T12:04:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T12:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/?p=18300"},"modified":"2025-09-03T12:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T12:29:58","slug":"afsa-launches-national-campaign-to-expand-access-to-mediation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/afsa-launches-national-campaign-to-expand-access-to-mediation\/","title":{"rendered":"AFSA Launches National Campaign to Expand Access to Mediation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>AFSA Launches National Campaign to Expand Access to Mediation <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2 September 2025, Johannesburg \u2013 <\/strong>The Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA) today launched its <em>Justice Through Mediation<\/em> campaign, an initiative designed to provide free* mediation services to individuals and small businesses across South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The campaign aims to reduce court case backlogs and to empower a new generation of AFSA-trained mediators under the mentorship and guidance of retired judges and lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>AFSA\u2019s transformative mediation model is anchored in quality mentorship and inclusivity, and at its core, plans to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Offer free* mediation services for disputes within a defined financial threshold, subject to the discretion of retired judges and lawyers.<\/li>\n<li>Support and develop young, trained mediators by giving them opportunities to mediate real cases under supervision.<\/li>\n<li>Ensure high standards of professionalism, ethics, and educational value embedded in the judicial and legal mentorship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cJustice Through Mediation \u2013 it\u2019s a call to action<em>,<\/em>\u201d says <strong>Andile Nikani<\/strong>, CEO of AFSA. \u201cWe have asked retired judges, advocates, and attorneys to continue their lifelong commitment to justice by mentoring young AFSA-trained mediators. Their experience matters, not only to those they mentor, but to every South African who will gain faster, fairer access to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All participating mentors receive comprehensive training at no cost to align with mediation principles and are formally recognised on AFSA\u2019s Panel of Mediators \u2013 a public acknowledgement of their role.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Justice Through Mediation<\/em> campaign showcases AFSA\u2019s commitment to driving innovation in alternative dispute resolution, nurturing tomorrow\u2019s mediators, and expanding access to justice through mediation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Disclaimer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>*Free mediation services are provided within a defined financial threshold and are subject to eligibility criteria and the discretion of participating retired judges and lawyers. Not all disputes may qualify. AFSA reserves the right to assess each case individually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Images and captions:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Andile Nikani, CEO of AFSA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The campaign aims to reduce court case backlogs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2 September 2025, Johannesburg \u2013 The Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA) today launched its Justice Through Mediation campaign, an initiative designed to provide free* mediation services to individuals and small businesses across South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afsa","category-press-releases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18300"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18305,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions\/18305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swmcommunications.co.za\/press-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}