A total of 80 staff including paralegals, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) officials and defense counsels drawn from the Board’s 23 offices countrywide have benefitted from a one-day refresher capacity building workshop organised by the Legal Aid Board (LAB) with support from UNICEF-Sierra Leone.
The workshop, which took place at the Police Wives’ Hall at Kingtom in Freetown, was geared towards capacitating participants on Paralegals’ Roles and Case Management; Child Rights and Safeguards; Community Engagement and Legal Literacy; Legal and Policy Framework and Child-Friendly Legal Aid Services.
Speaking during the opening session, the Executive Director of the Board, Ms Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles, the training would help to sharpen the knowledge of staff on how to handle child related issues. She added that, “children are not supposed to be in the jails”, noting that as a Board “we have a big obligation in protecting their rights whenever they are in contact with the law”.
Ms Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles urged staff to always ensure that the rights of children were protected when dealing with their matters. She thanked UNICEF for its continued support to the Board.
Speaking on child’s rights and safeguarding, the facilitator, Counsel Ibrahim Samba, started by defining who was a child; rights of a child as stipulated in Part III of the Child Rights Act 2007 which include right to life, food, shelter, education, parental duty and property, etc. He stated that, “safeguarding simply means to protect”.
He said, “one way of safeguarding children is by creating institutions such as the Legal Aid Board that stands for their rights and also by awareness raising”. He urged the participants to continue to be child protection ambassadors, adding that safeguarding children was not a one-man show.
In the area of Child-Friendly Legal Aid Services, the facilitator, Counsel Morrison Karimu, explained how child friendly legal aid services were done such as handling child matters in the language and manner that could be understood and friendly to the child.
Presentations were also made on Community Engagement and Legal Literacy and Legal and Policy Framework.
The workshop was climaxed with questions, answers and comments.