Dina Black writes:
On Day 1 of our project, we received a
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| Dean Dersolegn |
briefing from Dean
Dersolegn Yeneabat who told us about the Arba Minch University (AMU) Law
School’s free legal aid services. Professors Richard Carver and Lisa Handley
explained to us the research topic and interview techniques. We discussed
various research methods. The goal of free legal aid services is to provide
access to justice for vulnerable people; most of the clients are too poor to
pay for legal assistance. More than half of the beneficiaries are women with
children. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRCO) encouraged and financed
the University’s Law School to set up a free legal aid programme in 2011 as
part of its community service. The providers include members of staff from AMU
Law School, students and middle-level legal professionals.
In the afternoon, we interviewed the providers and
beneficiaries of legal aid at Arba Minch legal aid centre positioned next to the
local court building. We conducted interviews using ethical considerations. At
the beginning of the interviews we described our project, its goals and asked
participants for consents, giving them an option to stop at any point.
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| Dina, Bunkeshi and Mekdes conduct an interview |
During the interviews, our teams found that the legal aid
centres deal with various cases, such as domestic violence, child maintenance,
succession, human rights violations, divorce cases involving land, property and
children. We learned that currently there are eight centres providing free
legal aid in the region where we are staying and four more centres are planned
to be opened by the end of 2020. The provision involves legal advice,
counselling, drafting pleadings and representing their clients at the court
proceedings. All material gathered during the interviews we used in our
presentation on the last day of the project. We worked in mixed groups which
included students from both countries. This gave us the advantage of having a
translator in each group and allowed us to cooperate successfully with our
Ethiopian counterparts. I feel that this enjoyable collaborative teamwork was
mutually beneficial and helped us to learn from each other.
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| Bunkeshi, Dina and Mekdes |
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