Blogpost: Project Legal Aid

1st day working with the Legal Aid Project, Saturday 26th of June:

After one week together with the whole AIM delegation, the work on the project got started. We were really looking forward to meet our collaborators at Kamwokya Christian Caring Community (KCCC). So Saturday afternoon, we had our first meeting with Godfrey from KCCC and Richard, working on the Advocacy. Vinesh and I had prepared on beforehand some thoughts about this meeting. We wanted to talk about KCCC Advocacy’s thoughts about the project, the status of the project now, and our ideas and thoughts about how to move the project forward. We had a good communication with Godfrey and Richard, and got written down a planning for our stay.

As the Advocacy is now, they receive clients, “survivors”, to the office. From there, the legal aid service until now has been to refer these cases on to the legal system/ the police. Most of the cases that come in to the advocacy are cases of sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and child battling and abandonment. The workers here are not lawyers, but social workers. The aim now, is to move the project forward, so that the advocacy can provide legal aid services. This, will start with a collaboration with the Law students at Makerere University.
To reach this goal, we are planning to events during our stay: a meeting with relevant collaborators in this project, and an information-day, to give information about this legal aid service at KCCC.



Sunday 27th of June:

Today we met our host families, with who we’re going to stay during the next two weeks (while working with the AIM Projects). Elisabeth and I stay at Jane’s house; she’s a teacher and the head of a primary school here in the slum of Kamwokya (KCC). Olav and Vinesh stay at Carol’s house; she’s a member of Lions Club in Kampala. We are very much looking forward to get to know our host families better.



Monday 28th, Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th of June:

We are now working on organizing the activities we planned for our stay, together with Richard and Silvia who works at the Advocacy.
Monday, we had a meeting with Richard. We worked out an invitation list for the meeting we’re planning to have next Wednesday. The objectives with this meeting, will be to discuss challenges and providing legal services to survivors of sexual abuse and neglect, and to streamline the referral network to the advocacy. We will invite the different heads of the Police, and a number of non-governmental organizations which already provides legal aid services.

Vinesh and I arranged a meeting with the President of Makerere Law Society (the student organization at the Faculty of Law), Simon Kamau yesterday, Tuesday. It was a good meeting. Simon told us that the law students would be interested in working at KCCC, as a relevant experience to their studies. We proposed to him some ideas.
One is to create a student group responsible for the contact with KCCC, and for promoting this legal work in practice towards the students themselves. Then, the outcome would be a permanent communication between KCCC Advocacy and the students working there. Simon was positive to this idea, and said he will take this further on in his organization to create such group.

The other thing we wanted to talk to Simon about, was to arrange a meeting at Makerere University, the Faculty of Law. At this meeting, all the law students will be invited, and Richard from KCCC Advocacy and Vinesh and I, can all meet to talk about this project and to give information to the students about it. We arranged with Simon, that this meeting will take place on one of our last working-days with the project; Friday 7th of June. We also invited the President of Makerere Law Society, Simon, and the Guild President of Makerere University to the meeting on Wednesday. We think that would be a possibility for these student leaders, to learn more about the project, and to succeed this information to the students.
Today, Wednesday, the invitations to the meeting are going out to all invited. We are looking forward to the meeting, and to continue the work with Project Legal Aid.

- Therese