Education/training
Law students give relief agencies a LIFTIt's a long way from the hallowed halls of the University of Toronto law school to remote villages in Sri Lanka, South Africa and the Cook Islands, but an ambitious group of law students have been bridging the gap in a bid to support relief agencies that work tirelessly under the radar. |
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 [ 2007-07-25 ] |
Jared Kelly, University of Toronto law school graduate and LIFT co-founder, spent eight weeks in South Africa as part of the group's mission to address humanitarian crises.
Since its founding a little more than two years ago, the LIFT (Legal Initiatives for Tomorrow) Project has been lending a helping hand -- and plenty of legal advice -- in developing countries. It was launched by students inspired by a speech by a Toronto professor who narrowly survived the tsunami that devastated South Asia in 2004.
"We wanted to contribute something meaningful," co-founder Jared Kelly says. "We decided the best way to do that was to send someone to Sri Lanka who could learn from the doctors and other people on the ground about relief groups that weren't getting as much support as some of the bigger players."
As its first project, LIFT chose to support the Siyath Foundation, a grassroots women's cooperative dedicated to empowering impoverished women and their families in the agricultural and fishing communities of Sri Lanka's southern coast. LIFT held a gala fundraiser in Toronto in support of the cooperative, which supports women who make rope from coconuts.
HIV/AIDS
Next, LIFT decided to tackle HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Kelly spent about a month in Botswana looking for a non-governmental organization that fit LIFT's criteria. He landed in Zimbabwe after hearing about the Girl Child Network (GCN).
Founded by former school teacher Betty Makoni in 1998, GCN's mission is to empower and educate girls, while advocating against the cultural acceptance of their abuse and exploitation.
According to a report, 93% of sexual abuse cases in Zimbabwe involve girls.
"What I saw blew my mind," says Kelly, a native of California who completed his undergraduate studies at McGill University in Montreal. "I realized I could have a meaningful impact everywhere I looked. Betty takes care of girls who are victims of sexual abuse ... She has spread her wings and has GCN networks in many schools. She has done more than 500 rescue missions."
Kelly accompanied Makoni on one of those missions and filmed the rescue of an 11-year-old girl named Margaret. "The girl's family had tried to sell her to a 76-year-old man the week before ... It turned out to be a three-day mission. Betty is relentless. She wouldn't go home until her mission was accomplished."
GCN has since become known around the world. Makoni spoke at an AIDS conference in Toronto and attended a fundraiser hosted by LIFT, where Kelly showed the documentary he made in Zimbabwe.
The last founding member still with LIFT, Kelly has recently handed over the reigns to a first-year law student. This summer, the group -- which is partially funded by the Faculty of Law's international human rights program -- has set its sights on an HIV/AIDS support program in the Cook Islands.
Kelly will write the bar exam this summer and work at a firm in Boston that specializes in intellectual property litigation. He is proud of the support LIFT has garnered.
"I'm surprised and humbled by how it is taken off," he says. "Eight of the 20 biggest law firms in Toronto are sponsoring it and a lot of students really want to get involved. I am excited about its potential -- I think it could reach an even broader scale."
QUICK FACTS
The LIFT (Legal Initiatives for Tomorrow) Project was founded by University of Toronto law students. Its mission is to isolate the human rights issues within humanitarian crises and provide assistance to local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by providing legal research support, conducting fundraising campaigns and raising awareness in Canada through advocacy.
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