Renforcer le pouvoir de la communauté pour lutter contre l’injustice commence le 2 mai 2024 et se termine le 30 mai 2024. L’inscription au cours est maintenant terminée.

Le cours est disponible en anglais et en français.

Rencontrez les participants

Nous rassemblons des personnes issues de différents horizons et une chose que nous avone encommun est que nous travaillons avec les communautés pour développer leurs propres solutions aux défis auxquels elles sont confrontées et pour lutter collectivement contre l’injustice sous toutes ses formes et demander des comptes aux dirigeant.e.s . Une grande partie de ce travail est enracinée dans des contextes locaux, diversifiée et se concentre sur l’impact à long terme.

Le renforcement du pouvoir communautaire consiste à faire en sorte que les communautés les plus touchées par l’injustice agissent ensemble pour avoir beaucoup plus d’influence, un voix et un contrôle sur les décisions qui affectent leur vie. Une grande partie des connaissances sur la façon de lutter contre les injustices appartient aux communautés. L’exploitation de ces connaissances pour renforcer le pouvoir nécessite des ressources, l’approfondissement des compétences existantes et la culture du leadership communautaire.

Le renforcement du pouvoir communautaire n’est pas un concept nouveau. Nous avons fait ce travail, comme en témoignent les succès que nous pouvons tous partager. Cependant, il faut s’unir en tant que défenseur·euse·s de la justice de base pour apprendre les un.e.s des autres, sur ce qui fonctionne et ce qui ne fonctionne pas , sur la manière de pérenniser les succès de renforcer les preuves solides qui montrent que les approches qui renforcent le pouvoir de la communauté sont essentielles pour s’attaquer aux causes profondes de l’injustice et remettre en question le statuquo. Le Pouvoir défie Le Pouvoir.

Ce cours de 5 semaines sera une discussion interactive pour les membres du GJN Afrique afin de partager ce qui fonctionne pour eux et les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés sur ce thème.thème. Le cours comprendra :

• 5 appels zoom en direct (une fois par semaine) avec des animateurs.trices et des discussions en petits groupes
• Échange dans des groupes WhatsApp (par langue)

Qu’allez-vous apprendre?

Pendant cinq semaines, nous allons entreprendre un itinéraire d’apprentissage avec des défenseur·euse·s de la justice de base en Afrique et nous découvrirons les stratégies qu’ils·elles utilisent pour renforcer le pouvoir de la communauté.

• Identifier comment le pouvoir se manifeste dans les injustices que nous combattons.
• Définir le pouvoir  communautaire et voir comment il se manifeste dans notre travail
• Examiner comment nous utilisons l’autonomisation juridique pour renforcer le pouvoir des communautés
• Soit inspirée par le praticien.enne.s qui surmontent le défis pour renforcer le pouvoir communautaire
• Tirez parti des leçons de ce cours pour réfléchir à la manière de résoudre un problème rencontré dans votre communauté.

À qui s’adresse ce cours?

Ce cours est conçu pour les  parajuristes communautaires, défenseurs.euses de la justice de base ou de première ligne et personnel du programme qui travaille en étroite collaboration avec les parajuristes communautaires et les communautés.

Quelle est la durée du cours?

Le cours se déroule sur 5 semaines, du 2 mai 2024 au 30 mai 2024. Les séances se déroulent une fois par semaine, tous les jeudis, et durent 90 minutes. Vous aurez l’occasion d’interagir avec les autres participants lors des discussions en petits groupes sur Zoom et dans les groupes whatsapp respectifs.

Les sessions se tiendront de 13h30 à 15h WAT | 15h30 à 17h EAT | 14h30 à 16h SAST

Quel est le contenu principal du cours?

Sessions interactives, axées sur la théorie et le partage des connaissances et des expériences des participant.e.s :

Les thèmes sont les suivants :

2 mai:  Qu’est-ce que le pouvoir ? Cette session nous donne l’occasion d’identifier et de voir le pouvoir au cœur de chaque injustice que nous combattons.

9 mai: Pouvoir communautaire :  Au cours de cette session, nous définirons ensemble le pouvoir communautaire, nous verrons ce qu’il faut pour renforcer le pouvoir communautaire et nous identifierons ce qui nous empêche de renforcer le pouvoir.

16 mai : L’autonomisation juridique  et le pouvoir des communautés : Dans cette session, nous examinons comment nous utilisons  L’autonomisation juridique pour  renforcer et maintenir le pouvoir des communautés.

23 mai: Solutions: Dans cette session, nous explorerons les solutions aux défis soulevés avec des exemples inspirants de praticiens.

30 mai:Principaux enseignements :Au cours de cette session, nous résumons ce que nous avons appris et convenons des prochaines étapes.

Building Community Power to Fight Injustice begins on the 2nd of May, 2024 and ends on the 30th of May, 2024. Registration  for the course is now closed.

The course is available in English and French. 

Meet the participants

We have a diverse group of people and one thing we have in common is that we work with communities to develop their own solutions to the challenges they face and to collectively challenge injustice in its many forms and hold leaders accountable. A lot of this work is rooted in local contexts, diverse and focuses on long term impact. 

Community Power is about communities most impacted by injustice acting together to have much greater influence, say and control on decisions that affect their lives. A lot of the knowledge on how to tackle injustices lies with communities. Harnessing this knowledge to build power needs resources, deepening of existing skills and cultivating of community leadership. 

Community power is not a new concept. We have been doing this work evidenced by the successes we can all share. We do however need to come together as grassroots justice actors to learn from each other; about what works and what doesn’t, how to sustain the successes and build stronger evidence which shows that community power approaches are key in addressing the root causes of injustice and challenging the status quo. Power challenges Power.

This 5 week course will be an interactive discussion for GJN Africa members to share what works for them and what challenges they face on this theme. The course will be comprised of: 

• 5 live zoom calls (once a week) with presenters and breakout group discussions. 
• Exchange in WhatsApp groups (by language)
  

What will you learn?

For 5 weeks we will go on a learning journey with grassroots justice actors from Africa and learn about the strategies that they use to build community power.  By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Identify how power manifests in the injustices we are fighting 
• Define what community power is and how it looks like in our everyday work 
• See how legal empowerment can be used to build community power 
• Be inspired by practitioners on overcoming challenges to build power 
• Draw from the lessons in this course to consider how to address a problem faced in your community

Who is this course for?

This course is designed for community based paralegals, grassroots or frontline justice defenders and program staff who work closely together with paralegals and communities.

How long will the course take?

The course spans 5 weeks, starting on May 2nd, 2024 and ends on the 30th of May 2024. The  sessions take place once a week, every Thursday. Each session lasts 90 minutes. You will have opportunities to interact with other participants through the live break out group discussions on Zoom  and in respective WhatsApp groups.

Sessions will be from 1:30 – 3 PM WAT | 3:30 – 5 PM EAT | 2.30- 4 PM SAST

What are the main contents of the course?

Interactive sessions, focused on theory and sharing of knowledge and experiences from participants.The course has five lessons:

The topics are as follows: 

2nd May:  What is Power? this session gives us the opportunity to identify and see power at the heart of each injustice we are fighting 

9th May: Community Power:  In this session we get to define Community Power together, see what it takes to build community power and identify what keep us from building power

16th May: Legal empowerment and community power: In this session we look at how we use legal empowerment to build and sustain community power 

23rd May: Solutions: In this session we explore  solutions to the challenges raised with inspiring examples from practitioners. 

30th May: Key learnings and way forward :In this session we summarize what we have learnt and agree on the next steps

On March 22, 2023, community-based paralegals and representatives from civil society and development organizations gathered at the University of Nairobi Faculty of Law to hear directly from community paralegals, His Excellency the Canadian High Commissioner Mr. Christopher Thornley, the Honorable Chief Justice of Kenya Martha Koome (through a representative), the UN Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers Prof. Margaret Sattherthwaite, Namati, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre about the importance of strengthening grassroots justice in Kenya and abroad.

Kituo cha Sheria and the Paralegal Society of Kenya (PSK) played a key role in putting on the event. PSK National Coordinator Mary Airo opened by urging development partners to continue funding paralegals, emphasizing the transformative impact of their work on society: “It is when paralegals engage local state institutions in concrete ways that justice is made accessible.” Elssy Saina, Chairperson of PSK and Executive Director of the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya then shared research showing that there are social, political, and economic benefits for Kenya of implementing and financing a robust legal aid regime that centers community-based approaches.

The Honorable Chief Justice of Kenya, Martha Koome, in remarks delivered by Principal Magistrate Moses Wanjala, emphasized the Court’s commitment to people-centered justice, noting that “Paralegals can help ensure that the justice system is not only accessible, but also responsive to the needs and realities of the people it is intended to serve.” The Chief Justice announced two exciting initiatives to support collaboration between the Kenyan Judiciary and community paralegals. First, the Judiciary plans to provide training and capacity building through the National Steering Committee on Alternative Justice Systems to ensure community paralegals are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide effective legal services. And second, the Judiciary will help facilitate the involvement of community paralegals in the Small Claims Court to represent litigants.

The Canadian government is similarly prioritizing grassroots justice as a way to close the access to justice gap, by providing funding and programmatic support to community-level justice efforts around the world. In the words of Christopher Thornley, the High Commissioner of Canada to Kenya: “Prioritizing support for justice at the community level has been shown to be more effective in empowering women and marginalized groups of persons to know and claim their rights – which in turns offers potential for activating fundamental rights in our societies and building a deeper and richer conception of citizenship and democracy.”

Professor Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, pledged to use her UN mandate to shine a light on the essential work of grassroots advocates. She shared poignant reflections from her work with survivors of military abuses in Haiti, emphasizing that it is community justice advocates who have taught her the most about discrimination and injustice. She urged the audience to listen to and learn from communities, who best understand the problems they are facing and the solutions they need. Professor Satterthwaite put forth her vision for an expanded legal ecosystem in which paralegals and lawyers work together as allies and partners to dismantle systems of exclusion and close the global access to justice gap.

Two powerful panels gave life to the importance of this vision and to the crucial work being done by grassroots advocates in Kenya and around the world. In the first, Kenyan community paralegals Anthony Njenga (Kibera Community Justice Centre), Juliet Kisilu (Eastleigh Community Justice Centre), and community organizer David Mwangi (Akiba Mashinani Trust) shared their success stories and challenges from supporting single mothers to formalize their shops and earn a living, providing legal aid to individuals at Nairobi City Court, and organizing the Mukuru community to advocate for access to basic services. The three were in agreement that community justice workers must be formally recognized, resourced, and included in decision-making!

A second panel showcased the learning agenda for legal empowerment, a collective learning effort in which 11 projects across 16 countries are using participatory action research to identify what works to uphold human rights in the face of structural inequality and exclusion and rapidly eroding public accountability. Representatives from three of the projects were highlighted in the conversation: Sheila Formento from Alternative Law Groups in the Philippines, Jane Weru from Kenya’s Akiba Mashinani Trust, and Antonia Berríos & Macarena Martinic from Chile’s Fiscalía del Medio Ambiente. They shared how they are using systematic research and learning to build community power, increase the participation of women and marginalized groups in decision-making, and advance changes to laws and institutions.

In Kenya and around the globe, the transformative potential of community-level justice work is clear. Recognizing and funding the work of grassroots justice defenders is crucial to ensure that marginalized communities know their rights and can navigate the path to justice.

Watch the event here:

SPEAKERS

Presented in partnership with:

Namati is a Sanskrit word that means “to shape something into a curve.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We call ourselves Namati because we’re dedicated to bending that curve.

This video was generously produced by Skoll.org, a long-time partner of ours.

From January to December, Namati and our partners supported 25,000+ people in 6 countries to address injustices involving land, environment, healthcare, and citizenship. Together, we achieved remedies that directly improved the lives of 300,000+ people, and systemic changes that affected millions more.

We invite you to explore the stories behind these facts and figures in our annual impact report. 

In these pages, you’ll also discover how the Legal Empowerment Network drove our movement for justice forward by fostering deep learning among members across borders and by co-launching a global fund with the goal of investing $100 million in grassroots justice efforts worldwide.

Nota del editor: Este artículo fue publicado por primera vez en el L.A. Times. Lo publicamos de nuevo en esta página con su autorización. Se vuelve a publicar aquí con su permiso. Para leer esta nota en inglés haga clic aquí.

He aquí un hecho vergonzoso del siglo XXI: Defender el planeta puede hacer que te maten.

En la Amazonia peruana, tres líderes indígenas fueron asesinados en el lapso de tres semanas durante febrero y marzo de este año: Herasmo García Grau, Yenes Ríos Bonsano y Estela Casanto Mauricio. Todos ellos intentaban conseguir derechos sobre sus territorios para frenar la deforestación ilegal por parte de plantaciones de coca y palma aceitera, entre otras.

Jiribati Ashaninka, presidente de ORAU, una alianza de 15 pueblos indígenas de Perú, habló conmigo en marzo por Zoom desde su casa en Ucayali, la región donde se produjeron los recientes asesinatos. “Nuestras comunidades nos han pedido a los dirigentes que luchemos” contra el acaparamiento de tierras y la deforestación ilegal, dijo. “Nos han pedido que reivindiquemos nuestros derechos, y por eso estamos en riesgo”.

El riesgo que describe existe también fuera de Perú. Global Witness contabilizó 212 asesinatos de defensores del medio ambiente denunciados públicamente en todo el mundo en 2019, el mayor número desde que empezó a hacer un seguimiento en 2012. (El recuento de 2020 aún no se ha publicado).

Ashaninka dijo que cada asesinato envía un mensaje. “Algunos de nuestros líderes han guardado silencio sobre la cuestión de los derechos a la tierra”, manifestó. “Algunos se han adentrado en el bosque para esconderse”. Dijo que los asesinatos se han producido durante años, pero nunca se ha condenado a nadie. El ministro de Asuntos Internos de Perú a veces emite un informe, comentó, pero “eso no es útil cuando estás muerto”.

La deforestación podría hacer que la Amazonia pase de ser una región que absorbe el carbono a una fuente productora de carbono. Al luchar por su hogar, personas como Grau, Ríos y Casanto nos protegen a todos. Pero no se les da el tipo de protección legal que se ofrece a los testigos en casos penales o a los que denuncian las malas prácticas de las empresas.

Un nuevo pacto regional, el Acuerdo de Escazú, que entró en vigor en América Latina y el Caribe el jueves, Día de la Tierra, será el primero en exigir a los países miembros que proporcionen protección legal a los defensores del medio ambiente.

El acuerdo también pretende que la normativa medioambiental sea más sensible a las comunidades que sufren daños. Los gobiernos de los países miembros están obligados a divulgar información sobre los proyectos industriales propuestos, a garantizar la participación temprana y genuina de la comunidad en las decisiones de concesión de permisos y a crear recursos efectivos cuando las empresas superen los límites de contaminación o se apoderen de tierras de forma ilegal.

El acuerdo de Escazú está retrasado. Mi agrupación ayuda a organizar una red de más de 2.500 grupos de justicia de base en casi todos los países del mundo. Los detalles varían, pero el patrón básico está en todas partes, desde Odisha (India) hasta KwaZulu-Natal (Sudáfrica) y Washington, D.C.: las comunidades con menos poder se llevan la peor parte de la degradación medioambiental y, cuando intentan defenderse, se enfrentan a la intimidación y las represalias.

El presidente Biden ha reconocido esta relación entre la destrucción del medio ambiente y la desigualdad, dando prioridad a la justicia medioambiental en sus planes nacionales.

Pero la política medioambiental global, incluido el enfoque de Biden, sigue siendo en gran medida tecnocrática y descendente, centrada en los compromisos nacionales de transferencia de tecnología y reducción de emisiones. Estas medidas son necesarias, pero no suficientes. El acuerdo de Escazú muestra cómo podría ser la política global de justicia medioambiental.

Cabe preguntarse si los acuerdos internacionales valen mucho, dados los graves desequilibrios de poder en juego y el hecho de que numerosos gobiernos están abrazando el hipernacionalismo. Pero los activistas informan de que Escazú ya ha marcado la diferencia.

Gabriela Burdiles, abogada del grupo chileno de justicia medioambiental FIMA, me dijo que las negociaciones multilaterales sobre Escazú han contribuido a que los derechos medioambientales sean un tema destacado en el debate sobre la nueva Constitución de Chile. Aída Gamboa Balbín, que dirige el programa de la Amazonia de la organización peruana Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, señaló que, sin las negociaciones de Escazú, la sociedad civil no habría podido convencer al gobierno peruano de crear su primer tribunal dedicado a los delitos ambientales, lo que ocurrió en 2018.

En los 12 países que han ratificado Escazú, entre ellos México, Bolivia y Argentina, el verdadero trabajo comienza esta semana, cuando los movimientos locales de justicia ambiental empezarán a presionar para que se aplique de forma efectiva. Burdiles, que coordina con defensores de la causa ambiental en toda la región, dice que tener la palanca común del acuerdo hará que esos movimientos sean más fuertes.

Si el gobierno de Biden está dispuesto a tomarse en serio la justicia ambiental, tanto en el extranjero como en casa, debería apoyar las negociaciones para un acuerdo global de Escazú como segunda parte del acuerdo climático de París. Es tanto una cuestión de justicia como de supervivencia planetaria. “No puede haber cambio climático sin zonas de sacrificio”, escribe Hop Hopkins, agricultor urbano y organizador de la justicia medioambiental. “Y no puede haber zonas de sacrificio sin gente desechable”.

Los que se benefician de las zonas de sacrificio colaboran habitualmente a través de las fronteras nacionales. Es hora de que quienes luchan para garantizar que ninguna comunidad sea desechable tengan las herramientas y el marco legal para trabajar también a través de las fronteras.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in the L.A. Times. It is re-published here with their permission. For a Spanish-language version, click here. 

Here’s a shameful fact about the 21st century: Standing up for the planet can get you killed.

In the Peruvian Amazon, three Indigenous leaders were murdered in the span of three weeks during February and March of this year: Herasmo García Grau, Yenes Ríos Bonsano and Estela Casanto Mauricio. All of them were attempting to secure land rights over their territories to stop illegal deforestation by, among others, coca and oil palm plantations.

Jiribati Ashaninka, president of ORAU, an alliance of 15 Indigenous peoples in Peru, spoke to me in March by Zoom from his home in Ucayali, the region where the recent killings took place. “Our communities have asked us leaders to fight’’ against land grabbing and illegal deforestation, he said. “They have asked us to claim our rights, and because of that we are at risk.”

The risk he describes exists outside Peru as well. Global Witness counted 212 publicly reported killings of environmental defenders worldwide in 2019, the largest number since it started tracking in 2012. (The 2020 count is not yet published).

Ashaninka said every murder sends a message. “Some of our leaders have gone silent on the issue of land rights,” he said. “Some have gone deeper into the forest to hide.” He said killings have occurred for years, but no one has ever been convicted. Peru’s minister of internal affairs sometimes issues a report, he said, but “that isn’t useful when you’re dead.”

Deforestation could turn the Amazon from a carbon sink into a carbon source. By fighting for their home, people such as Grau, Ríos and Casanto are protecting all of us. But they aren’t given the kinds of legal protections extended to witnesses in criminal cases or corporate whistleblowers.

A new regional pact, the Escazú agreement, which comes into force in Latin America and the Caribbean on Earth Day, Thursday, would be the first to require member nations to provide legal protections to environmental defenders.

The agreement also aims to make environmental regulation more responsive to communities facing harm. Member governments are required to disclose information about proposed industrial projects, ensure early and genuine community participation in permitting decisions, and create effective remedies when companies exceed pollution limits or seize land unlawfully.

The Escazú agreement is overdue. My organization helps organize a network of more than 2,500 grass-roots justice groups from nearly every country in the world. The specifics vary, but the basic pattern is everywhere, from Odisha, India; to KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; to Washington, D.C.: Communities with less power bear the brunt of environmental degradation, and when they try to stand up for themselves, they face intimidation and retaliation.

President Biden, to his credit, has acknowledged this connection between environmental destruction and inequality by prioritizing environmental justice in his domestic plans.

But global environmental policy, including Biden’s approach to it, continues to be largely technocratic and top-down, focused on national commitments to transfer technology and reduce emissions. Those measures are necessary but not sufficient. The Escazú agreement shows what global environmental justice policy could look like.

You might wonder whether international agreements are worth much, given the severe power imbalances at play and the fact that many governments are embracing hyper-nationalism. But activists report that Escazú has already made a difference.

Gabriela Burdiles, a lawyer with the Chilean environmental justice group FIMA, told me that multilateral negotiations over Escazú have helped make environmental rights a prominent subject in the debate over Chile’s new constitution. Aída Gamboa Balbín, who leads the Amazon program of the Peruvian organization Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, said that, without the Escazú negotiations, civil society would not have been able to persuade the Peruvian government to create its first court dedicated to environmental crimes, which happened in 2018.

In the 12 countries that have ratified Escazú, including Mexico, Bolivia and Argentina, the real work begins this week, when local environmental justice movements will start pushing for effective implementation. Burdiles, who coordinates with advocates throughout the region, says having the common lever of the agreement will make those movements stronger.

If the Biden administration is willing to take environmental justice seriously abroad as well as at home, it should support negotiations for a global Escazú agreement as Part 2 of the Paris climate accord. It’s both a matter of justice and a matter of planetary survival. “You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones,” writes Hop Hopkins, an urban farmer and environmental justice organizer. “And you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people.”

Those who profit from sacrifice zones regularly collaborate across national borders. It’s time that those working to ensure that no community is disposable have the tools and legal framework to work across borders, too.

If, like me, you’ve felt blue at times during this last year, or tired, or hopeless, this 2019-2020 impact report might be a tonic. You’ll find here stories of ordinary people taking on grave injustice, and winning.

You’ll read how a grieving mother in Mozambique organized with her neighbors to end systemic corruption at the hospital they depend on. How communities in Myanmar stopped unlawful manganese mines from destroying their forests, water, and farmland. How residents from a low-income, majority African-American neighborhood in Washington DC forced the city’s largest infrastructure project to reduce its air pollution.

You’ll read how, tested by the pandemic, our global community of grassroots justice groups — over 2,400 organizations, from nearly every country in the world — has strived to meet this moment. How we came together to create the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund, which has made more of that vital work possible.

Learning from our successes is important, because we face profound challenges. Several paralegals we work with in Myanmar are now in hiding, and one is in prison, because of stands they took in favor of democracy. Most team members with our partner in India are dealing with COVID themselves or caring for sick loved ones. In Peru, three Indigenous leaders — partners of our network member Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales — were killed in February and March 2021 for resisting illegal deforestation.

Worldwide, the share of the population in extreme poverty is likely to increase for the first time since the 1990s. The Director of the World Health Organization declared we’ve reached an era of vaccine apartheid. The global Democracy Index had its lowest overall score in 2020 since The Economist started tracking in 2006. And we are on course to experience catastrophic climate change, which will affect poor and exploited communities the most.

The only things that can conquer challenges like these are movements of people committed to justice. And our movement is stronger and more determined than ever.

We look forward to joining hands with you on the road ahead.

By sharing the knowledge and skills needed to exercise basic rights, legal empowerment advocates are helping disenfranchised people fight pollution, gain access to clean water and sanitation, protect land rights and more.

January 9, 2020 — In 2007, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Peru’s central coast, killing hundreds of people and injuring many more. In the port town of Pisco, about three hours south of the capital of Lima, the earthquake hit especially hard: Homes and buildings crumbled to the ground, the roof of the San Clemente cathedral collapsed upon churchgoers, and, as The New York Times described it, the city’s main plaza was transformed into a “makeshift morgue.” In the months that followed, humanitarian assistance was focused on finding survivors and ensuring that the basic needs of some 85,000 affected families were met. But as the dust settled and the crisis subsided, Pisco’s victims found themselves in limbo.

The course is an opportunity to learn from first-rate faculty, tackle challenges we face in our work, and grow the movement for legal empowerment together.

We want you to be with us! Applications are now open for the LELC. The deadline to apply is August 8th.

“The course was extremely useful for me. I learned a lot in terms of methodology, using technology to showcase our efforts, and organizing communities to generate greater impact,” notes Fatima Diallo of Natural Justice who attended the 2018 LELC. “I would recommend this course to my colleagues 200%!”

The course will run from December 1st through December 6th and is co-sponsored by Central European University’s School of Public Policy, the Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at New York University School of Law, the Global Legal Empowerment Network, Namati, and the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Participants will dive deep into three case studies and explore vital questions for our movement, including:

• How can legal empowerment efforts adapt to changing political context, including a rise in repression?
• How best to blend legal services and organizing?
• How can legal empowerment advance gender equality? Land and environmental justice?

The course includes practical skills sessions on topics like power mapping, community legal education pedagogy, and using case data for advocacy. Participants will also have an opportunity to distill research questions to advance the evidence base behind legal empowerment.

The participants themselves are the best part of the course. Our emphasis is on peer learning. Everyone will come with challenges or live questions they are grappling with and, by working together, will leave with action plans to advance their work.

“To be in this space and learn about data, programming, strategic partnerships, and building power is extremely important. That is often not taught in our communities, not passed down,” recalls Jhody Polk, a 2018 LELC participant and Soros Justice Advocacy Fellow. “The course gave me confidence as a marginalized, directly impacted person that the dreams I have are possible. It has been a privilege and an honor to be in this space.”

We invite applications from practitioners, policymakers, donors, and researchers. Scholarships are available for a limited number of applicants on a competitive basis.

The legal empowerment community is a kind of archipelago. We are scattered across the globe, and often work isolated from each other, even when we hail from the same country. But when the tides bring us together at the Legal Empowerment Leadership Course, it’s a rare communion where we can learn, build bridges, and extend our movement to meet injustice wherever it may live.

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