Over the past year, the School has made a great contribution to the field of access to justice not only in Ukraine but also in Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, North Macedonia, the United States and Georgia. At the beginning of the new year, we decided to recall our successes in order to take up the implementation of new initiatives with even more energy.
Kyiv Legal Empowerment Practical Program has helped five countries of the world bring access to public services and justice closer to residents. Due to participation in the KyivLEPP-2020 training course:
- Kenya has developed a promotion plan for an alternative dispute resolution web platform so that everyone can use it.
- Kyrgyzstan is a plan to form a network of specialized paralegals to help victims of family and gender-based violence.
- Two North Macedonian teams are a paralegals office for remote settlements and an advocacy campaign to counter the blocking of Roma social bank accounts.
- The Ukraine-Poland joint team is an international communication platform for students, curators and clients of legal clinics in both countries.
The Pro Bono Lab team has created a unique online training video course “Legal Empowerment of Non-governmental Organizations”. To do this, the best lawyers and attorneys of Ukraine recorded video tutorials on various topics relevant for NGOs: code of ethics, conflict of interest management, protection of personal data, statutory documents, labor relations, proper drafting of contracts, procurement, audit, internal document flow, social entrepreneurship.
Pro Bono Lab co-organized European Pro Bono Week 2020 in Kyiv and held webinars for NGOs. During their week, legal experts not only gave lectures to representatives of the NGO but also consulted for free. For example, speakers told how to properly arrange employees who switched to remote work mode.
Throughout Ukraine, there are already more than 140 public advisers who last year helped about 6,000 people by prompting and sending them to relevant legal assistance or social services.
And in early 2021, 95 new community advisers can join the community. Now, a mentoring program is being implemented to create a network of mentors who will teach and help new community advisers to adapt to the community and gain all the necessary knowledge and contacts to help their fellow citizens.
Legal empowerment of communities
The Legal capable community Program has helped initiative groups learn how to make access to justice necessary and effective, how to respond to the legal needs of the community through analysis, advocacy and the use of strategic tools.
Currently, the program is sharing experiences and training initiative groups of 2019 and 2020. Khmilnyk’s initiative team finished the year with a thorough analysis of local regulations. Due to the analysis performed by the relevant commission of the City Council, it was decided to develop a new document of the program for the provision of free legal aid (FLA).
Kreminna team also worked on the PROGRAM of the FLA of their community, activists held talks with the newly elected city authorities on the continuation of the work of a specialized working group on the implementation of the FLA program. The teams to have participated in the 2020 program (in the communities of Uzyn, Zelenodolsk, Voznesensk, Chervona Sloboda and Berezanka) completed the stages of the research, began to analyze them, and look for options for answers to identified legal needs.
Laboratory of Initiatives to Increase Access to Justice for the Groups Vulnerable to HIV
During 2020, the Lab focused on forming tools to provide people vulnerable to HIV with high-quality legal assistance at the systemic level. Together with the Coordination Center for Legal Aid Provision, a group of mentor advocates was formed and a program of specialized training for them on aspects of protecting HIV-vulnerable clients in criminal proceedings was developed. In addition, to provide high-quality free legal assistance in matters of civil and administrative relations, the Laboratory conducted a series of trainings for more than a hundred employees of the centres for the provision of free legal aid.
Protection against discrimination
At the beginning of 2020, the training course “Protection of victims of discrimination and hate crimes” was completed and a period of webinars for training participants from the course experts began. Lawyers who took up discrimination cases during their studies, along with teachers, built strategies to protect their clients. Further, the participants were expected to have a two-day practical intensive under the supervision of Ukrainian and foreign experts.
Due to the work of graduates of the Program, people who needed protection from discrimination received such assistance. With the support of the course graduate, lawyer Myroslava Annyuk, a resident of Husiatyn, Ternopil region, won a court from the local council, which did not give persons with disabilities access to the courtroom. Another graduate lawyer Iryna Pasmurova stood up for the young mother, who took the baby, calling her to be a drug addict. This year we are intended to write about the successes of our other graduates and graduates who provide assistance to people affected by discrimination.
The team of the program “Interactive law education Street Law” held the first festival in Ukraine “FIN $KILLS”. During July 21-23, 2020, more than 150 participants from Ukraine, Poland, Georgia and the United States joined meaningful discussions, webinars and presentations devoted to the topic of consumer protection of financial services and financial literacy.
As a result, the team of the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine has prepared a textbook for conducting practical law classes “Street law: Consumer Protection in the Field of Financial Services”.
In 2020, the Legal IT Hub team taught NGOs to use the free Avodocs program, which helps to prepare documents for working with partners and clients in a matter of minutes. G Suite features that Google has provided for NGOs since last year have also been demonstrated.
When the coronavirus pandemic began in Ukraine, Legal IT Hub talked about the most useful programs for remote work. By the way, if you know any good electronic tool to make life easier for others, share the information in our questionnaire.