About The Course

As the world continues to react to COVID-19 and attempts to build back better and vaccinate its citizens, the justice gap continues to widen. The exacerbation of justice issues has led to more than five billion people living outside the protection of the law and lack meaningful access to justice. We are witnessing rising cases of gender based violence, lack of access to essential services, intimidation by violence, not forgetting unfair distribution of vaccines and health services.

Legal empowerment seeks to turn this tide. It is about enabling people to understand, use, and shape the law. The Legal Empowerment Leadership Course is a unique opportunity to take stock of our collective knowledge and build upon it to strengthen a global movement for justice. As of 2019, the LELC had been held annually for five years, except in 2020 when we had to change our delivery strategies due to the coronavirus.

We are pleased to announce that this year, the course will be held virtually for the first time. In this pilot virtual course, we will be working with a select group of participants who will engage in collective learning in a ten-day-long online program.

This course hopes to cultivate a global cadre of leaders who are committed to legal empowerment, and who share a common understanding of the field, including history, methodology, and evidence. A faculty of respected practitioners and academics will lead course participants in an in-depth exploration of key themes, including the conceptual framework of legal empowerment, community organizing and social movements, and community driven data collection and analysis for advocacy. The participatory course design will also emphasize peer-to-peer learning through small online working groups and special skills sessions around virtual community organizing, promoting legal services remotely, power mapping and innovative financing.