Project Justice is promoting gender equality, law enforcement, and the reduction of sexual violence within communities, providing a critical foundation for girls empowerment.
When girls feel safer and protected by their community, they are able to focus on education, accessing critical services and information, engaging with one another, exchanging information and building social assets, all of which will benefit not only themselves, but the community and their future families.
Many communities in Uganda have limited exposure to their legal system. As a result, individuals are not aware of their human rights, women’s rights, or children’s rights, which are the law of the land in Uganda. Project justice lays a critical foundation upon which the Girl Power Project is built, promoting a legal justice network of support at the community, police and hospital levels that a girl can access if she is a victim of sexual and/or gender based violence or other injustices. Project Justice comes in before the Girl Power Project is introduced to girls and boys to ensure that everyone in the community has the knowledge that is needed to support empowered girls.
Through Project Justice, Just Like My Child Foundation Uganda teaches communities their legal rights and how to defend them. Initially in partnership with the Uganda Federation of Women Attorneys (FIDA), Just Like My Child Foundation Uganda has trained over 2,000 community leaders, healthcare providers and police officers in dozens of communities to become Community Legal Volunteers (CLVs). The training focuses on social justice, human rights awareness, prevention of violations and what to do in instances where violations are reported. The aim of the training is to:
Transform harmful attitudes, mindsets and norms within communities
Engage influential community members to serve as Legal Volunteers and lead the courageous effort
Sensitize entire communities through dialogues about human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, values, basic knowledge on laws governing society, domestic violence, gender based violence, referrals and linkages, community development and ways to refer crimes against those rights to appropriate authorities
Community Legal Volunteers are equipped with the knowledge to provide basic human rights and legal information, as well as guidance, through community dialogues. This project has established and continually supports an effective referral system for victims of sexual and gender-based violence in central Uganda. It continues to provide support by holding hundreds of dialogues every year.