Community paralegals can come in to address the environment and Climate In Justices faced by communities. As reservoirs of information, community paralegals can create awareness at the community level on issues of climate change and make communities aware of the need to tackle Climate Change. Paralegals can carry out advocacy work on climate change thus help organize communities to demand change.
Evans Muswahili Ladema, Kituo’s paralegal from Vihiga Community Justice Centre who is so passionate about the environment and Climate Justice participated at the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 that started on 6th and stretched through to 18th of November in Egypt, courtesy of generous funding from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and UN Climate Change accreditation facilitated by Kituo Cha Sheria and Namati Kenya.

COP27 presents an opportunity for all stakeholders to come together to find concrete solutions to the global climate emergency, including mitigation, adaptation and resilience, loss and damage, and climate finance.
Evans spoke on behalf of the poor and marginalized in Kenya seeking climate justice. His presentation touched on three key issues; relationships between food systems and climate change, scaling regenerative food systems as a climate solution, and gender issues in food systems and climate action. He looks forward to having the ambitious goals and commitments set by UN member states in reducing global warming put into practical action.

Members of the African Centre of Excellence for Access to Justice (ACE-AJ) together with the regional and international partners in community justice on 19th October 2022 convened for a 2-day participatory meeting in Nairobi to discuss and draft an action plan in preparation for the High-Level Political Forum 2023 (HLPF) side event.
The action plan will clarify the necessary resources, formulate a timeline, and detail the necessary tasks to be completed to ensure a successful event. A key focus for HLPF2023 will be on financing. A possible topic for consideration is the ‘Challenges and opportunities around financing community-based justice.
This Side-event of the HLPF, held outside the official programme provides a great opportunity to discuss the theme and SDGs under review at the HLPF2023, identify new and emerging issues, and help spread greater awareness of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
While African governments have made commitments under goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063/2 of the African Union to ensure access to justice for all, in reality, a significant number of people from the continent lack access to justice.
Building momentum towards key 2023 “moments” will to help hold governments accountable to SDG16+, and to pressure them to make more concrete commitments to action by showcasing civil society action around SDG16+ through “Storytelling” efforts, to highlight the leading role that civil society is playing to advancing SDG16+

ACE-AJ will continue to mobilize support across civil society for SDG16+ action and commitments around key 2023 “moments”, including the 2023 SDGs Summit and “Summit for the Future”. Additionally, ACE-AJ will mobilize resources to support grassroots actions around SDG16+ at the national and local levels, to build out more localized movements led by key civil society partners.

Kituo cha Sheria, through the Forced Migration Programme conducted a 2-day capacity building for Refugee Led organizations (RLOs) at Waridi Paradise Hotel in Nairobi. The training that took place on 21st and 22nd Nov. 2022 covered basics in Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), the Refugee Act 2021, Durable solutions as provided for in the Act in relation to RLOs operations, Financial management, Advocacy strategies and Principles of corporate governance.

Through the support of Open Society Foundations Kituo continues to build the Capacity of the refugee-led organizations to enhance meaningful participation, collaboration and protection of refugee rights.

All over the world, people are fleeing persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Intersex refugee children face discrimination, violence and exclusion. It’s our duty as human rights defenders to create awareness on Intersex refugee children’s rights.

Conversations inform policy and reminds the state that they have an obligation to enforce positive rights. All human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear no matter who they are.

Kituo Cha Sheria through the Forced Migration Programme conducted a 5-day training for paralegals of refugee community and refugee led organizations at Waridi Hotel Nairobi. The training that took place from 26th October to 1st November 2022 aimed at empowering refugee led organisations and the refugees in particular on approach to justice for the vulnerable in the refugee community and promoting intercultural diversity for peaceful engagement in conflict situations among the refugee and host community.
The paralegals among the refugee community and refugee led organizations will also be sensitized on mental health and psychosocial support into peace-building efforts and building cohesion.
Upon successful completion of the training, Kituo officially launched a justice centre in Nairobi under the Youth Voices Community as a way to decentralize legal empowerment and peace building initiatives to the refugee communities.
Kituo’s Executive Director Dr. Annette Mbogoh who officiated the opening of the justice centre and graduation ceremony welcomed this timely partnership. She stated that Kituo has been receiving overwhelming cases from the refugee community on police harassment, general lack of knowledge of refugee issues, negative and discriminatory attitudes from local populations and barriers to foreign qualifications recognition.

She encouraged the refugee paralegals to use the knowledge gained to empower their fellow refugees and asylum seekers by providing guidance on their rights and obligations as well as information regarding their asylum application and their refugee status, offering advice on their cases, making referrals and following up on cases.
Kituo handed over administrative support material including a laptop, Printer and tonners to Youth Voices Community (YVC) Refugees Justice Centre to facilitate the processing of legal documents at the centre. All these were made possible through the support of Open Society Foundations and Ziviler Friedensdienst / GIZ

Kituo Cha Sheria hosted a team from the Global Legal Empowerment Network for an exchange visit on 5th October 2022. The Legal Empowerment Network delegation from the North America, Latin America, South East Asia, East and West Africa was led by Abigail Moy, the Director, Legal Empowerment Network. The Network team was received at our Head Office by our Executive Director Dr Annette Mbogoh among staff and community paralegals.

While making her opening remarks, Abigail emphasised on the importance of the network responding to the needs of its members, building capacities and partnerships in enhancing legal empowerment globally. She stressed on the need to enhance the engagement of members especially at grassroots levels, sharing successes and models and advocating for financing for legal empowerment.

On her part, Dr Annette highlighted the milestones that Kituo cha Sheria had achieved as the East Africa Regional Anchor. She added that the core group consisting of members from East and Southern Africa had actively led advocacy initiatives at the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights and the NGO Forum. The core group had also centered its conversation on learning around impact at individual and community levels.

In addition, the core group had began reflecting on legal recognition and financing models for community paralegals in Africa. Thereafter the Kituo programmes teams, community based paralegals and the Network Team had an opportunity to share their experiences.
It was agreed that there was a need to enhance and tap on key areas for synergy between network members. access to justice Namati Kenya