The University as a Space for the Promotion of Social Justice

The Experience of the Extension Project Serving the People of the Waters

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/93641 

The contemporary socio-environmental crisis, intensified by the neoliberal paradigm and its unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, represents one of the greatest challenges of our time, imposing limits on planetary sustainability and deepening social inequalities. Its effects disproportionately affect structurally vulnerable communities, such as Indigenous peoples, riverside populations, and small-scale fishers, whose fundamental rights related to housing, work, and dignity are severely compromised. In this context, it becomes essential to examine the role of Law and public universities in shaping socially just and ecologically responsible responses. This article analyzes, from this perspective, the experience of the Extension Project Atendendo ao Povo das Águas (“Serving the People of the Waters”), developed within the Permanent Extension Program Citizenship, Rights and Justice (CIDIJUS/FURG), as a response to the climate disaster that struck Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 2024. Based on a qualitative methodology inspired by action-research, the study combines documentary and bibliographic analysis with field observation, articulating theory and practice in the construction of critical knowledge. Through the extensionist practice and the work carried out by the Legal Aid Clinic (EMAJ/FURG), the article seeks to demonstrate how the university can constitute a space of resistance against the naturalization of inequalities, promoting access to justice and the effectiveness of fundamental rights in contexts of socio-environmental crisis.