In 2020 NULAI launched the Justice Education Fellowship (NJEF), a one-year research and community justice education programme for
penultimate and final-year undergraduate law students drawn from
university-based law clinics across Nigeria. The fellowship is designed to
engage outstanding students in academic research and practical justice
education, equipping them to become future leaders in the field of justice
education and access to justice.
The fellowship is divided into three phases:
Research Phase- this is the first 6 months of the program; fellows are expected to carry out literature review and resource mapping on any of the focus areas of the fellowship.
Community Education and
Online Campaign Phase.
One of the objectives of the fellowship is providing access to justice services through community justice education to communities and persons that may not have easy access to information.
In the last 6 months of the program, fellows educate communities and groups within and around their university environment and also carry out online campaigns.
The 2020 edition of the fellowship was implemented in partnership with Action4Justice, an organization committed to improving access to justice for marginalized communities in the Global South. Through its digital platform, Action4Justice provides resources that inform community members, civil society organisations, and legal practitioners about human rights, environmental protection, and strategies for enforcing rights.
As part of the programme, eleven fellows were trained at the NULAI Centre for Clinical Legal Education to develop user-friendly legal guidebooks for civil society actors and the general public. These guidebooks covered key areas, including:
Access to Justice: focused on
Women Rights
Child’s Rights
Protecting Civic Spaces
The fellows were supported by the NJEF Advisory Committee, a group of fifteen experts drawn from a global network of practitioners and scholars in justice education and access to justice. Their mentorship ensured the quality and relevance of the fellows’ research outputs.
The final research outputs were published as practical legal guidebooks on the Nigeria A4J Spoke site, making them accessible to a broad audience.
In 2019, NULAI executed a Memorandum of Understanding with Action for Justice International (A4J), and launched a Nigeria spoke site, an online platform designed to facilitate education on human rights enforcement and environmental standards. The Justice Education Fellowship serves as a key vehicle for advancing this partnership and strengthening legal empowerment efforts in Nigeria.