LWOB projects are ongoing in the following regions: Liberia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Namibia, Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone. Our work typically falls into one of the following four categories: Trial Advocacy Training, Neutral Trial Observation, Community Outreach and Technical Assistance. Themes of our work include: Gender based and domestic violence, trafficking in persons, economic empowerment to drive access to justice sustainable programming, electoral violence, civic electoral rights, conflict mitigation, mediation and consensus building, rights of the child, succession, inheritance rights and land conflicts.
Our outputs or deliverables often involve collaboration with other professionals and have included: Trial Advocacy Training modules for Judges, Trainers and lawyers, roadmaps, illustrated civic education materials, visual educational and awareness materials and campaigns, assessment, evaluation and confidential trial observation reports.
Course and published materials are typically created in English but are frequently translated into one or more local languages and have in the past included some of the following: Swahili, Amharic, French and Spanish. Lawyers working on these projects come from all disciplines, a diverse array of practice sectors and from law firms, governments, public interest organizations, universities and the private sector.
LWOB programming has grown exponentially over the last two years. Its partnerships are strong and the value and impact of the collaborative model using the cost-share component with the world’s largest law firms cannot be overestimated. Unlike many other organizations working with pro bono collaborative, LWOB is considerably more than a clearinghouse. LWOB develops the programming, often obtains supporting grants to underwrite hard direct program costs, typically develops and oversees the lawyer tasks and throughout the project remains involved as a reliable supporting resource for the firms and their lawyers.
LWOB’s newest efforts include creating more sustainability in community targeted Rule of Law programming that is not dependent on international donor interventions. The concept involves creating what we have termed an “economic engine” to Rule of Law. Roll out of those initiatives is in the very preliminary stages but it represents what LWOB believes is a necessary step in future community based access to justice work .
Because LWOB and its lawyers frequently operate in less than completely safe environments, we ask for your indulgence for our not revealing the entirety of available details about our work . We are sure that you appreciate that the safety of our lawyers is paramount and while our pro bono public relations team at Walek & Associates cringes when they hear this, there are important accomplishments and work ongoing at all times that we simply cannot discuss in a public forum.
