The Global Legal Empowerment Network, which Namati convenes, brings over 7,500 individuals and 2,000 organizations from 160 countries together to tackle the most pressing justice challenges of our time. When a domestic worker is denied her wages or a community’s drinking water is poisoned by toxic runoff, we stand with them. We empower them to know, use, and shape the law to secure justice.
Legal empowerment champions Rose, Haya, Jhody, and Meg, share their experiences in the videos below. For each of them, the Global Legal Empowerment Network has been a source of knowledge, useful tools, and inspiration. All of which are precious in the difficult and often lonely struggle for justice.
Pursuing community land rights and environmental justice in Kenya “can be extremely draining” work, says Rose Birgen, a Senior Programme Officer with Natural Jusitice. But connecting with fellow members of the Global Legal Empowerment Network inspires her to persevere. “It gives you that nudge to keep going. It’s like, people around the world—you’re not in the same place, but you’re holding each others’ hands.”
The Global Legal Empowerment Network been a source of “inspiration and education” for Haya Zahid, the executive director of the Legal Aid Office, a not-for-profit organization working on access to justice in Pakistan. “[It] has shaped our work significantly,” says Haya. “There has been a paradigm shift in how we design our interventions and how we really think about solutions to everyday justice problems.”
Jhody Polk, the founder of the Legal Empowerment & Advocacy Hub (LEAH), likens the Global Legal Empowerment Network to a “one-stop shop”. As the Soros Justice Fellow says, “I’ve been able to receive tools, even financial support, to do my work. And…[i]t’s been the safest place for me to ask questions but also to share and gain knowledge.”
Professor Meg Satterthwaite and her colleagues look to the Global Legal Empowerment Network as a source for vital grassroots voices who are leading justice efforts all over the world. “We need those voices, we need to hear what they’re saying, we need to hear what their challenges are, and we need to bring them together with practitioners and scholars so that we can learn together and move the field forward.”
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