The challenge is that our country’s vast system of laws make it difficult for citizens to be aware of their rights and understand how to enforce them. Language is also a big challenge and since legal information is mostly available in English, and it’s written in a manner that is complex, it becomes even more difficult to comprehend.
Indians can not read
Don’t Speak English
Who had a legal dispute would not approach the police
Would not approach lawyers
All of these factors lead to a wide gap between the law on paper and how it actually operates.
Citizens need simple, actionable, reliable and accessible legal information in languages they are familiar with and contextualized to their geographic location.
The Fellowship is a network of grassroots lawyers (Fellows) working with Nyaaya to close the last mile gap in accessing justice. The Fellowship aims to make the law ‘an instrument of social change’.
The Fellows will be practicing district-level lawyers who have litigation experience and a demonstrated interest in legal awareness work. They will create and disseminate actionable legal information to beneficiaries in their own communities around India.
Nyaaya will work with grassroots organisations to reach marginalised communities and the Fellows will create content specific to the requirements of these communities and answer their questions.
As the Covid pandemic hit, the world soon realised that its effects were not isolated to medical ailments, but went beyond to legal issues as well.
To assist people in these crucial times, Nyaaya launched a Whatsapp based Covid Legal Helpline to answer questions with information that could help people from underserved communities access essential rights and services. We were fortunate to have over 300 lawyers across 25 cities volunteer with us to answer the questions that came in through that helpline.
This helpline evolved to one that provides legal information beyond issues related to the pandemic and we partnered with grassroots organisations, like Gram Vaani to achieve that.
An example of a joint campaign we conducted with them was “Meri Bhi Awaaz Suno.”
Through this campaign, Nyaaya provided simple, actionable, legal information on rights and entitlements, health laws and employment laws for a series of 8 audio episodes of 3 minutes each. These episodes were launched on Mobile Vaani (Gram Vaani’s federated network of community media platforms).
The episodes were a huge success. They had 13,929 unique users, 1,09,756 minute cumulative listening duration and received 991 comments and additional 473 questions.
Unique Users
Minutes of cumulative listening
Comments received from listeners
Questions additionally answered
Nyaaya will undertake a rigorous vetting process to select the Fellows, after receiving a nomination from a grassroots organisation that demonstrates dedication towards socially relevant work.
Our country is what we make of it. So like us, if you have been trying to find a way to contribute and impact the access to justice landscape in this country, we would welcome your association with the Fellowship. You can choose to mentor and/or sponsor a Fellow and help us expand the network.
The Fellows are highly qualified practicing lawyers and will be working with the local community to bridge the last mile gap and make justice accessible at grassroots level.
If you would like to sponsor a fellow or contribute to support the fellowship, please send an email to contact@nyaaya.in and we will get in touch as soon as possible. We will provide you with an 80G certificate for your contribution.
Bringing grassroot level impact is not easy. Our Fellows can achieve their goals faster with advice from someone with expertise and experience. If you are a practicing lawyer and can provide mentorship to our Fellows, please send an email to contact@nyaaya.in and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
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