Project Proposal First Draft

Issue

We are a group of Newcastle Law School students who wish to support refugees. Our conversations with community leaders have shown that individuals from refugee backgrounds are often reluctant to turn to traditional legal service providers for advice. A myriad of factors contribute to this, including: accessibility; gaps in knowledge on legal rights as well as perceptions of what matters might actually constitute legal issues; language barriers; as well as feelings of cultural distance and concerns that formalised legal services providers may lack understanding of cultural context.

Proposed Solution

The delivery of legal services in an outreach capacity would increase comfort and make the legal services more accessible, as well as being more suitable to fostering trust. We propose the UNLC attends an existing community event to deliver an informal educational presentation, taking the form of a discussion circle with community members on a specific area of law. The discussion circle would run for approximately 1 hour and be accompanied by handout resources. At the conclusion of the group discussion, the solicitors would remain at the venue for 1-2 hours for an informal advice clinic.

This would be ongoing presence by the UNLC, with the discussion circle occurring once a semester at an appropriate date that suits the community group visited.

Resources needed

The UNLC would need to provide 2 solicitors (both male and female to ensure all members of the community feel comfortable speaking to a solicitor) and between 2-4 students enrolled in the clinical legal program to assist the solicitors and to engage in related learning.