A bit about what I am doing...


Rule of Law Centres

So through the Canadian Bar Association's Young Lawyers
International Program (YLIP), Evelyn and I were placed with the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) in Myanmar. The IDLO has many projects around the world, but in Myanmar their main focus is the Rule of Law Centres (ROLCs). 

They run 4 ROLCs in Myanmar: one in Yangon, one in Mandalay, one in Taunggyi and one in Myitkyina. At each of these ROLCs there are different courses and workshops that locally trained national staff provide for lawyers, law officers (crown prosecutor equivalents), civil society organizations, and government officials. The basic training is a Foundations in the Rule of Law course but they also they offer more specialized courses like Legal Skills Training, Land Issues, Constitution etc. These courses are fairly basic as the legal education in Myanmar is very poor - but that makes the work all the more important. 

So far my main task, in addition to reviewing and editing reports, is to oversee a legal awareness campaign on facebook around the 13 rule of law principles extolled by the ROLCs. It's all in Myanmar so hopefully the translation from my text is correct - because I have no idea! 

As well, the American lawyer in charge of designing the curriculums, Tara, has recently been in talks with the International Labour Organization (ILO) to provide a workshop around worker's rights, which aligns with my expertise back home.  So this might be a cool project for me to work on. 

Below is a video Evelyn and I watched upon arrival and it really helped me to understand the impact of the work this organization is doing.





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