South Asian legal clinic of bc (SALCBC) SALCBC is a newly formed non-profit which aims to improve access to justice for South Asians in British Columbia through multilingual clinics, public legal education seminars, legal research and advocacy, and supporting other like-minded grassroots organizations with legal issues.
project overview
The PBSC positions at SALCBC provides law students the opportunity to assist with public legal education for low income South Asian people in the Lower Mainland. Subject to review by the supervising lawyer, the law students will create content for public legal education workshops in the following areas: ● Family Law (including on issues of domestic violence) ● Immigration Law Additionally, students may also develop content for workshops focusing on additional areas of law, depending on clientele need, student interests/qualifications, and SALCBC’s priorities: ● Poverty Law ● Disability Law ● Employment Law ● Human Rights Law ● Wills/Estates/Probate/Elder ● Residential Tenancy The workshop on each topic should be about 1 or 1.5 hours long. Students will research legal issues and then compile the information into a PowerPoint for presentations, accessible language handouts for clients, and speakers’ notes for public legal education workshop facilitators. All documents or resources must be reviewed by the lawyer supervisor. Note that the students will not be facilitating the workshops at this time; however, if students are interested in presenting and if the workshops are drafted before the end of the partnership, there could be the opportunity for students to present. Students will be expected to perform the tasks remotely, but will be able to meet face-to-face with the supervising lawyer. Students will work on 1-3 workshops, including handouts and speakers notes for the duration of the partnership. The number of workshops will depend on the complexity of that area of law. The student and supervisor will decide on the scope of the workshop at that time. Students may have the option of working on developing and/or presenting Consent Workshops, tailored towards international students at post-secondary institutions (such as Langara College). Should this opportunity arise, the SALBC-PBSC student will work closely with students working on the “Consent Project”, another PBSC placement offering such workshops to local high school students. two students will be required for this project.
expectation of students
A workplan is required.
volunteers are expected to put in 3-5 hours per week. schedule for completing hours is flexible. a PREFERENCE will be given to student who can speak/read/write in a South Asian language. A knowledge of ADMINISTRATIVE law and/or civil procedure. these courses can be taken concurrently. other expectations for this project: Familiar with the barriers that constrain South Asian people in BC and recent immigrants from accessing justice. Ability to keep these constraints in mind when drafting the public legal education workshops. Comfortable using MS Office or other comparable program (to create PowerPoint presentations and format and write newsletters in particular). Able to write confidently in accessible language.
