Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The conflict in Northern Uganda is ongoing since 18 years and has retarded its community in very many aspects, loosening social structures and values. The community has lost knowledge of their civic values, rights and obligations as well as their sense of social responsibility as a result of the breakdown of the community and the traditional family and household structures. Notably, there is increased juvenile delinquency; domestic violence, community corruption and interpersonal violence e.g. mob justice.The Justice and Peace Commission of Gulu Archdiocese (JPC) has been trying to promote human dignity, peace and reconciliation through advocacy, research, and networking. The JPC-Gulu has been doing this through rehabilitating people and systems in Gulu through paralegal training as overall strategy. This 'Paralegal Training and Advocacy'-project proposes to expand the geographical target of the existing program from Gulu to Kitgum and Pader, to increase the number of paralegals and to further improve the success of their work. The persons trained as paralegals offer legal first aid and legal advisory services, counselling services also for domestic violence, education and advise about responses to the Human Rights crisis in the local context of the law and culture, resource mobilization and referral services for human rights and the law.The vision of the Paralegal Program is to promote more just and peaceful households and communities in Acholi land. The main objectives are to build the capacity of 6,000 households in Kitgum and Pader to respond to cases of human rights violation within their communities and to sensitise the community about issues of justice, peace building and non-violent means of conflict management.JPC-Gulu will start a paralegal training program in Kitgum and Pader, conduct refresher courses for the trained paralegals, organize community sensitisation dialogues and a close monitoring system to paralegals and the communities.