1.3 What is Legal Empowerment
Legal empowerment is the process of combining the power of law with the power of people to support communities to know, use, and shape the law. Usually the technique involves a local legal intermediary, often called a community paralegal or barefoot lawyer, who can demystify the law and help communities organize a response.
Legal empowerment is a community-led, bottom-up approach. In contrast to conventional legal aid approaches, which often treat people as victims requiring a service, legal empowerment is about building the knowledge and power of people to solve injustices themselves. Legal empowerment shifts from “I will solve this problem for you,” to “We will solve it together, and in the process we will grow.” Through the process of legal empowerment, the people most impacted by injustice gain the capacity to exercise their rights and take part in the decisions that affect their lives.
For years, Namati, the Grassroots Justice Network, and our network members have used legal empowerment to help communities fight injustice, address social and environmental issues, and drive systemic changes to transform unjust systems.
To learn more about legal empowerment, watch this quick video and read these short chapters of the paralegal guide.
Video: Namati & Grassroots Justice in 2 minutes