Regional Workshop to Design and Organize Training for Legal Empowerment Organizations Inauguration: The South Asian Institute of Advanced Legal and Human Rights Studies (SAILS) in collaboration with the BRAC hosted a two-day long regional workshop entitled Legal Empowerment and Capacity Building at BRAC Centre Dhaka from 14 to15 December, 2014. The event was supported by the Open Society Foundation (OSF). The workshop brought together selected representatives from civil society organizations, community justice practitioners and academia from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. The broad objectives of the workshop were to chalk out the design of a training program to build the capacities of legal empowerment organizations in South Asia which include: Identifying the target audiences (NGOs, CBOs, policy makers, community justice practitioners, master trainers) for the training programs; Brainstorming around the topics including the length and format of the training programs; Detailing the contents and indentifying potential participants for the Training of Trainers (ToT); Putting together a list of master trainers who are internationally recognized for their expertise to serve as resource persons; and Agreeing upon a structure for ensuring continued learning and engagement at the regional level through organizing subsequent workshops. Dr. Kamal Hossain, Chairperson, SAILS graced the inaugural session of the workshop as the Chief Guest. Barrister Manzoor Hasan, Executive Director of SAILS delivered the welcome speech. Barrister Hasan thanked all the participants from home and abroad who attended the workshop and requested them to briefly introduce themselves. The agenda for the two-day workshop was then set out by Dr. Faustina Pereira, Director, Human Rights and Legal Services, BRAC. Dr. Kamal Hossain in his speech iterated that from its inception SAILS has been geared to develop regional cooperation in terms of designing legal empowerment programs. He stressed
that the idea of SAILS was conceived within a South Asian umbrella given the need to develop regional cooperation in terms of legal programs was identified as a pressing requirement. He opined that in practical terms, a regional program also makes more sense than a "global" one because the latter tends to be too broad in focus while the former is localized and; hence more functionally viable. Dr. Hossain observed that poverty is a nuanced problem in that while it is generally recognized in economic terms, the concept of poverty can also be extended to other arenas. For instance, a country or region may be identified as not being economically impoverished but a lack of provision of other social services such as legal aid, etc. could lead it to being identified as "legally impoverished." Therefore, it is important to recognize and reexamine our approach and perception towards these indicators. Dr. Hossain lauded SAILS for its efforts to reach out to its neighboring countries and to have participants from the region come over to Dhaka to brainstorm around developing a training curriculum for legal empowerment. He noted that countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh have very many common social impediments. For instance, while Pakistan has to grapple with honour killings, Fatwa violence is a major challenge in Bangladesh. Efforts to address these issues can be unified and that is where cooperation between legal services organizations in these two countries can be mutually beneficial, he said. He ended by talking about his appreciation and willingness to ensure continued support for SAILS and its activities. Dr. Faustina Pereira continued the session by explaining how the idea of a regional initiative to organize a legal empowerment and capacity building workshop was mooted during discussions around the post 2015 Social Development Goals held at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She reiterated Dr. Hossain s perspective on poverty being not monochromatic but a multidimensional phenomenon. She viewed that there is an intrinsic link between development and justice. She informed the audience that talks regarding legal empowerment and capacity building program were going beyond the regional forum and included partners in Africa who are already investing in designing the upcoming curriculum. She also noted that this workshop is a follow up to the Kathmandu conference which brought together most of the participants to share learning about good practices in the region. Dr. Faustina Pereira observed that the meaning of paralegals vary across contexts. She
emphasized that there is a pressing need for formal recognition of community paralegals through certification and accreditation. She hoped that SAILS would continue in its effort to bring together practitioners in the region to share good practices relating to legal empowerment including community justice and grassroots activism through regional training programs. She stressed for developing a regional network of practitioners and knowledge base for providing a space for continuous learning. Time is rife to explore mechanisms for supporting frontline activists and community practitioners across Legal Empowerment Programs in the region, she noted. Working Session- Day 1: The discussions in the working session were facilitated by Andrew Jenkins, Donor Liaison Officer of BRAC. Dr. Jonathan Rose, Research Advisor, SAILS walked the participants through the findings of a survey re: Survey of Legal Empowerment Organizations in South Asia that was conducted remotely prior to the workshop. Notably, fourteen participants comprising representatives from civil society organizations, academics, community justice practitioners and NGO professionals from India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan including three representatives from the Open Society Foundation responded to the questions raised in the survey. According to the survey, participants identified management and leadership; monitoring and evaluation; modalities of community paralegal programs and research on legal empowerment as key thematic areas for learning and sharing. Topics which have assumed importance include citizenship and legal identity; women s empowerment; human rights; traditional justice institutions; Alternative Dispute Resolution and Para Legal Work in the region. The survey identified NGO representatives, master trainers, grassroots justice organizations, leadership and managers of legal empowerment organizations as potential audiences for the training programs. While participants observed that the duration of the proposed training programs should stretch across one to two weeks, representatives from OSF viewed that the training courses should run for no longer than three to four days. After discussions on the findings of the survey, participants were divided into five working groups and were asked to brainstorm around:
1. Audience 2. Training areas 3. Topics The first working group identified trainers and focal points from NGOs; government officials and frontline workers as potential audience for the training envisioned. They prioritized paralegal course development with emphasis on facilitation skills; informational roles of community paralegals around availability of services and resources; referrals; community outreach and sharing of good practices as key areas for training. They further suggested that topics for the training curriculum should include applicable laws in a given context including gender and human rights; clearly articulated terms of reference; as well as code of conduct and ethics for paralegals. The second working group identified human rights NGOs, legal empowerment and grassroots development organizations, community based organizations, self help groups, lawyers and bar associations, government legal aid bodies, law departments, University Clinics as potential audiences for the training course. They identified several topics that the training component might cover such as: An introduction to Legal Empowerment models (including best-practices from other countries); Roles and responsibilities of community paralegals; Regional course on Training of Trainers; Linking the informal sector to the formal sector (informal and formal mediations); Fund-raising- how the government and NGOs can work together to fund these programs; and Sustainability and a phase-out strategy (in terms of developing the program) They suggested that topics such as human rights and gender; engaging with existing ADR forums; legal identity; information about services and referrals and the use of RTI should be included in the training program. This group iterated that training modules should be developed and adapted to the local context so that grassroots justice advocates could reap the benefits of the training program.
In terms of an audience, the third group viewed that it would be useful to train program managers, universities, experts, senior trainers, government officials and bar associations. In a related vein, ideas on criteria for selection, core competencies and qualifications, curriculum objectives and building a research network were mooted by them. This group iterated the need to make a distinction between training and convening- convening applicable for top leadership and senior level stakeholders. They stressed for building on existing models relating to legal empowerment. Topics identified by this working group include combating gender based violence; designing and running a paralegal program; monitoring and evaluation; finance and sustainability of legal empowerment programs. The fourth working group noted that the target audience should include top leadership in NGOs, mid-level professionals, academics and law students. This group observed that the training areas should focus on monitoring and evaluation; research; management and leadership; training and managing paralegals; customized training for grassroots workers and clinical legal education (both street law models and externship programs) programs for law students. They envisioned that topics for the training courses should include women s access to justice, training on public interest litigation; human rights and navigating administrative mechanisms and procedures for obtaining legal identity documents. The fifth group s presentation was comprehensive in its details. At the onset, they identified the target audience to include experienced NGOs committed to paralegalism, master trainers, Independent Lawyers Association (in the context of Myanmar) and policy makers. They suggested that training areas should largely focus on paralegal appreciation program, building professional identity of paralegals through development of quality standards, accreditation and certification for community paralegals. They opined that it would be very useful to encourage and train paralegals to work closely with Village Courts and with victims of VAW in Bangladesh. This working group suggested that learning topics should include monitoring and evaluation; citizenship rights; developing social identity of paralegals; advocacy for co-opting paralegals into the legal aid program; institutional support and management and leadership for organizations running a community paralegal program. At the end of Day 1, Barrister Manzoor Hasan thanked the working groups and requested them to brainstorm on the design of the training courses which they have envisioned for future uptake and implementation.
Working Session- Day 2: At the onset of Day 2, Barrister Manzoor Hasan asked Ms. Soma Roy Chowdhury, Program Advisor, SAILS to summarize the key points that were discussed and presented by the working groups on Day 1 of the workshop. Following a power-point presentation by the Program Advisor of SAILS highlighting the main points which were discussed on Day 1, Barrister Hasan requested the five working groups to present their ideas around the design of the respective training courses which they have collectively agreed upon. The first working group suggested that three training courses should be organized. According to this working group, the first training course entitled Advanced TOT & Training on Legal Empowerment of Trainers should be designed for master trainers. In their view, the training should be a weeklong residential course and should primarily be targeted for trainers who have the ability to deliver trainings to the individual organizations and the local community. National, regional and international experts with a proven track record and practical expertise in human rights, law, leadership, communication and facilitation skills should serve as resource persons for the proposed training course. The overall objective of the course would be to build the capacity of the local trainers so that they are able to develop a para-legal training curriculum adapting to the local context. The training course might include topics such as relevant personal laws relating to marriage and divorce; maintenance, child custody and inheritance; human rights; women s rights; minority and indigenous rights; right to information; gender; violence against women; domestic violence; lodging a general diary and first information report; compoundable and non compoundable offences; legal identity and citizenship; mapping of available resources; information on hotline numbers and social protection schemes. This working group noted that the second training course entitled Orientation Workshop on Legal Empowerment Programme for the Executive Directors of the NGOs should be designed with the objective of making the top leadership of NGOs active and informed on community legal empowerment and should help them develop a comprehensive action plan around networking and regional advocacy. The duration for the proposed training should be for three days and the topics that might be covered include sharing of good practices in the existing programs; advocacy and networking and action planning. Last but not the least, this group proposed a third customized training course entitled Sensitizing the Government Officials (UNO- DAO for Nepal) to Disseminate the Idea of Legal Empowerment. The length of the
course should stretch over a period of three days and the objective of this course would be to sensitize the government officials in Nepal on legal empowerment, they stated. They viewed that topics for this training course might include conceptual understanding on legal empowerment and its importance; human rights and relevant Constitutional provisions, gender and discrimination, women s rights; indigenous and minority rights; sharing around good practices and roles and responsibilities of government officials in legal empowerment of communities and grassroots groups. The second working group also proposed for three training courses. They maintained that the first training course entitled Comprehensive Regional Legal Empowerment TOT Course should be designed primarily for organizations and individuals engaged in legal empowerment. The duration of the training course should be two-week long and should be convened in April, they suggested. With a view to making the learning effective, they observed that the course should combine a methodology to include lectures, presentations, discussions and presentations based on practical experience. The course should culminate into a development of action plan by the participants and should be followed up through a refresher course, they said. Legal experts, sector professionals, international researchers and practitioners should be roped in as resource persons for this training course. They further opined that a wide range of topics including justice; introduction to legal empowerment concepts; examples of best practices from other countries; setting the regional context; ADR; role of paralegals; human rights; gender; RTI; accessing services; linkage development and navigating authorities; monitoring and evaluation; supervision; case management; awareness raising; advocacy and engaging with the media and sustainability should be covered in the proposed training program. The second working group further mooted the idea of hosting a second training course entitled Regional Workshop for Stakeholders. The course should run for two to three days in September targeting law makers; committees on human rights and law and justice; media; national commissions; members of the bar; judiciary and NGOs. The training should primarily focus on brainstorming, discussions and experience sharing, pledges and follow-ups around legal empowerment; examples and impact studies from other countries; understanding the regional context; existing systems; possible interventions and developing of action plans. Legal empowerment practitioners, researchers and NGO representatives should serve as resource persons for the proposed training course, they noted.
This working group suggested that a national training course should be designed for building the capacities of grassroots organizations and individuals as well as community paralegals, TDR actioners and practitioners at the local and national level. They observed that resource persons identified by SAILS could serve as trainers and that the length of the training program should be no longer than two weeks. It was emphasized that the course should be designed in a manner to facilitate dialogue between justice providers, service delivery departments and paralegals. The course should also focus on policies, legislation, implementation and initiatives at the local and national level. This should be followed by a refresher training program, they noted. The third working group came up with the idea of designing two training courses. They suggested that the first training course titled Leadership for Legal Mobilization could be designed for managers and key technical staff of community paralegal programs and projects and NAMATI should be the co-facilitator for this event. According to this working group, the proposed training will enable participants to identify policy, regulatory and implementation gaps from case experience; explore linking issues from grassroots experience to policy change; set up and facilitate ongoing learning programs more effectively on the basis of sharing good practices; incentivize staff and volunteers; improve the existing monitoring and evaluation system and integrate it into day to operations; build on their existing negotiation and mediations skills to more effectively address challenges and benefit professionally from networks and resources introduced through the training course. They viewed that the target audience for the second course entitled Innovative and Sustainable Financing should include senior management-directors, deputy directors and CEOs where applicable. The course should run for three to four days. The training program will enable participants to develop a sound understanding of good documentation; working with the media; legal aid; advocacy; coalition building; pulling crowd funds; diversifying funding base through exploring contribution from other sources (in-kind donations, provision of low cost services); reporting impact to diverse financial contributors and financial reporting. They concluded by emphasizing that these trainings could be organized on cost-sharing basis among participating organizations to begin with. In a related vein, they viewed that resource persons could also be shared. The fourth working group stressed for designing a certification course on managing paralegals in South Asia. Professional trainers with years of training experience should serve as resource
persons, they stated.they identified mid level executives with a minimum of eight years of experience as potential audience for this training course. The duration of this training course should be six days long out of which there should be a classroom component for four days and two days should be set aside for field level training and exposure. The South Asian University in New Delhi could run this course and provide certification to the participants upon successful completion of this training, they noted. They further encouraged the use of simulations and audio-visuals including multimedia and broached the idea of a participatory learning methodology for effective training of participants. The working group further suggested that participants should be able to draw up an action plan at the end of the course. The fifth working group proposed three comprehensive training courses. The first training course entitled Training of Trainers should be designed for potential master trainers (at least two trainers representing three organizations) from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Given the objective of this proposed training would be to build a network of master trainers who are able to set quality standards, this group opined that participants in this training should have institutional backing and some experience of legal outreach. They suggested that the duration for the regional course should be for ten days. They also proposed for a three day country specific follow up course at the national level with national core team support followed by hand holding two local training of trainers of similar nature with a view to cascading the learning to the local level. They suggested that SAILS put together two teams - one for delivering the regional and the other for the national TOT. The team should comprise of experienced resource persons with background and expertise in law and training, they noted. Through this course, master trainers should be able to acquire skills and learning around basic training concepts; designing skills; adult learning methods; presentation techniques and innovation in building training tools especially around rolling out of paralegal programs. The second training course entitled Leadership in Para-legalism for NGO Senior and Midlevel: Building an Institutional Architecture to Hold the Program Delivery should constitute a five day long regional event and two national events (two day long each) for facilitating the development of a strategic plan, they noted. They further suggested that SAILS should put together two teams (one regional and one national for each country) for delivering the training. Resource persons should have proven expertise in access to justice and designing legal services delivery systems, they viewed. They observed that this course should cover topics to include understanding concepts of leadership; background of para-legalism in South Asia; need for
alternate paradigm in access to justice; monitoring and evaluation and strategic planning around legal services delivery; building networks and fund raising and sustainability. The third training course entitled Institutionalizing Legal Empowerment through Para-legalism: Advocating for Policy Change and Enabling Environment should be designed for responsible role holders in access to justice including government functionaries, judiciary and law associations, they viewed. For this purpose, SAILS should hire policy experts and academics in law and development to serve as resource persons, they iterated. This should be backed by country specific research for regional exchange, they stated. A two day long regional colloquium could be organized for this purpose which could then be followed by a daylong event in each country, they suggested. A research paper should be developed for each country through this learning platform which should encompass comparative policy analysis; success stories of paralegal service delivery so that participants could learn from each other, they emphasized. Dr. Jonathan Rose thanked the participants for their inputs and requested them to share their ideas and experiences relating to research re: legal empowerment. In response, participants from Pakistan talked about household surveys, focal group discussions and ethnographic studies on impact of community paralegal programs while the participant from Myanmar emphasized the need for educating people on civil documentation and identity cards in particular. Representatives from the Centre for Social Justice in India informed the audience about the design of the entitlement and availability framework. Participants from Nepal and OSF spoke about generating robust evidence through research as to how legal empowerment interventions have led to policy changes in each country. Participants from Bangladesh shared their views and experiences regarding community perceptions on access to justice. During the open discussion session, the following points were noted by participants: One shot training programs are ineffective; It is absolutely important for the organizers of training programs to take responsibility of the outcome; Bearing in mind the time and resource constraints, training courses should not run beyond a week; It is imperative to sharpen the focus of the participants on conceptual clarity; A systemic space for paralegals in the justice sector should be explored; There is a need to design capacity building program at different stages;
SAILS could play a stellar role as a quality support and resource centre; SAILS could play a research and think tank role in building the policy environment; Certification of paralegals should be contingent on the work done on the ground; There is a need to integrate access to justice with health rights; Success stories around para legal programs should be actively disseminated; Capacity building and sharing of good practices around case tracking and case management is absolutely necessary; Importance should be attached to the development of a common code of conduct and quality standards for a paralegal program in South Asia. During the concluding session of the workshop, participants debated on the idea of constituting a regional advisory committee for the purpose of organizing, designing and nominating potential participants as well as resource persons for subsequent training and capacity building workshops. Most of them opined that it would be a good idea to constitute a working group with a representative from each country but strongly disagreed with the idea of forming a regional advisory committee. The workshop ended with a vote of thanks delivered by Barrister Manzoor Hasan..