PROJECT TITLE: CLAIM (Child Law: Action for an Innovative Methodology)
COUNTRIES: EU Member States
OVERALL OBJECTIVE: The project aims to promote the rights of the child through the implementation of a child-tailored justice system. This objective will be reached by enforcing the children's rights justiciability and with the promotion of a multidisciplinary and multilevel approach which will involve legal professionals (lawyers, attorneys, lawyers, judges), academics and NGOs.
It promoted the rights of the child through the implementation of child-friendly guidelines promoted by the Council of Europe, stating that children should have the rights to their own legal counsel and representation, access to free legal aid and that the lawyers representing them should be trained in and knowledgeable on children’s rights. Students provide assistance with research, the drafting of legal documents and meetings with clients.
ACTIVITIES:
The project involves the establishment of information offices for children’s rights, linked to bar associations, welfare services, children’s ombudsmen, NGOs etc. offering free legal support to children. The offices operate as legal clinics within the framework of law school programs providing thus hands-on experience to law school students and pro bono services to various clients. At the clinic, legal experts receive children for free legal advice and orientation, while the law school students provide assistance with research, the drafting of legal documents and the meetings with clients. In addition, students attend a special academic course, established in the framework of the project, where they discuss the most relevant cases of the clinic with professors and their peers. The activities of the clinic aim at supporting children and families at risk of social exclusion, while encouraging debate and discussion on children’s rights within the academic institutions. In addition to the establishment of the clinics, the project involves the organization of laboratories with children in order to produce child-friendly material with the scope of promoting the activities of the legal clinic and informing their peers on the theme of access to justice, a summer school on children’s rights with the participation of EU experts, as well as a final report on the project activities including the most significant cases followed by the legal clinic.
FUNDING AGENCY: European Commission
LEADER: Save the Children Italy
PARTNERS: EPLO, Law Faculty of the University of Athens- Greece (associate partner), La Merced Migraciones –Spain, Universidad Pontificia Comillas Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones-Spain, Universita Roma Tre-Italy
TIME FRAME: 2012-2014
