The Project “Legal Literacy, Rights Advice and Information for Poor People: a Pilot in Three Regions of Ethiopia” was initiated in October 2008 through a partnership agreement entered into between the Active Learning Center of the University of Glasgow in the UK and the then Organization for Social Justice Ethiopia. Since May 2010 the main partner for the implementation of the Project in Ethiopia was the Center for Human Rights Studies (Addis Ababa University), since the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia was not able to continue as partner due to changes in status and mandate following the enactment of new Charities and Societies law in Ethiopia. Thus the Project moved to partner with the Center for Human Rights Studies in May 2010. Funding for the activities of the Project was sourced from the Department for International Development (DFID).
The Legal Literacy, Rights Advice and Information for Poor People Project has wound up in March 2012 and is replaced by the much wider Access to Justice Project that commenced in December 2013. The Project was overall evaluated as a success by an independent evaluation research commissioned to assess the efficacy of the Project
The overall aim of the Project was to make a difference in the lives of poor people by raising awareness of their legal rights and assisting them in seeking legal remedies to violations of their rights. The targeted beneficiaries of the Project were poor people living in Addis Ababa, Adama, and Hawassa including those who live in the surrounding areas. The Project particularly catered for women, children, the elderly, people living with HIV/AIDS and those with disabilities.
The Project had the following specific objectives to achieve during its implementation period:
To achieve the objectives that the Project has set, it was engaged in different activities. The main ones are the following.
