Deadline: June 3, 2018

Are you a practitioner working on citizenship and legal identity? Want to learn and tackle common challenges with experts from across the globe? Apply to join the next Global Legal Empowerment Network 2018 Learning Exchange on Citizenship and Legal Identity. The exchange is open to applicants from around the world.

The Global Legal Empowerment Network is offering practitioners an opportunity to meet and learn from each other in person. Participants in this program will take part in an extended exchange trip, with travel and accommodation expenses covered by Namati, during which they will learn from leading organizations in the field about addressing common challenges and improving legal empowerment methods. Through practical, hands-on learning, we will strengthen our community of practice and our movement as a whole.

The 2018 Learning Exchange program will focus on citizenship and legal identity. It will take place in the October of 2018 with Namati and three dynamic Kenyan organizations – Nubian Rights Forum, Haki na Sheria, and Haki Centre as hosts – who work with community paralegals to support communities to overcome discrimination in accessing legal identity documents and full citizenship rights.

Participants of this learning exchange will be split into three teams and spend time in the field with Namati’s three implementing partners who will assign them to paralegals. They will accompany paralegals as they visit communities and handle cases relating to birth certificates, ID cards, passports, and death certificates; meet with civil society leaders working on citizenship rights; discuss tactics for high-level advocacy, including using grassroots data to call for change in policy and practice; and collectively workshop common challenges and develop concrete work plans for taking forward lessons learned.

The Learning Visit

A typical exchange will last 1-3 weeks and there will be flexibility based on the participating organizations and the specific context of the exchange. This learning exchange is set to take place in October 2018.

Prior to the visit, both hosts and visitors will identify a specific set of challenges facing them in their daily work. Participants will draft workplans outlining areas of knowledge exchange that will aid in addressing these challenges. During the visit, hosts and visitors will trade expertise on key areas of program and organizational development. The goal is to cultivate increased collaboration among network members and to improve the use of legal empowerment methods in practice through hands-on learning.

Benefits

The exchange program includes travel costs, lodging and visa fees, but the participants will be expected to contribute some of their own food expenses.

Eligibility

• The exchange is open to applicants from around the world.
• The program is open to all types of grassroots legal empowerment practitioners and organizations.

Organizations may nominate multiple candidates but must provide the nominee information and background for each separately. Nominees may include Executive Directors, Program Directors and Managers, or Monitoring and Evaluation Officers.

Hosts and visitors will be selected and matched based on the information provided during the application process. By matching participants according to complementary strengths and weaknesses, the program aims to maximize learning and ensure mutually beneficial exchanges.

Matching of host and participant organizations will be based on any of the following:

• Thematic areas (ie. land rights, prisoner’s rights, environmental justice, etc.);
• Methods used (advocacy, legal training, mediation, etc.);
• Common challenges faced or related target audiences;
• Other similar aspects of legal empowerment work where a useful exchange will benefit the organization and resolve challenges.

Instructions: *Organizations must work in citizenship, statelessness, or with groups without national legal identity to apply. Please complete and submit the following form.  They also require that you register as a member of the Global Legal Empowerment Network in order to participate – it is free & simple, and you can do so here.

Application

Below are some tips for completing the application:

• While applicants must demonstrate their organization’s commitment and effectiveness, the ideal applicant should also recognize room for growth in both the organization and in themselves as an individual.
• A strong applicant will show an ability to clearly assess the organization’s strengths and areas for improvement.
• A well-written application will include thoughtful essay answers about how both the individual and organization will benefit from participating in this exchange.

The application can be submitted through our website or by using an offline application that is submitted via email to [email protected]. The deadline for applying is June 3, 2018.

Apply Online Now or Download the Offline Application

For more information, visit Global Legal Empowerment Network.