The Samvidhaan Fellowship

People who are most in need of legal assistance face several barriers to accessible, reliable legal information, leading to a wide gap between what the Constitution of India promises and what it delivers. Lack of awareness, lack of access to information, complex legal process coupled with financial burden that it brings are some of the barriers to access justice. Additionally, factors like a person’s identity, income, social status, geographical location and level of education  could exacerbate the problem.  

Nyaaya is an open-access digital resource that provides simple, actionable, reliable, and accessible legal (SARAL) information to help Indian citizens navigate their lives and solve legal problems. Nyaaya’s partners who are community-based organisations have emphasised on the overwhelming need for legal assistance from a local legal expert to help their beneficiaries  navigate the system.

To fill this gap, we conceptualised the Samvidhaan Fellowship with the theme of making justice mechanisms accessible.

The Samvidhaan Fellowship is a one-year paid fellowship that will support eight district lawyers from Karnataka to close the last-mile gap in accessing justice. 

The Fellows will be practising district-level lawyers with litigation experience and a demonstrated interest in legal awareness work. They will work with the Nyaaya Team and Nyaaya’s partner community-based organisations to create and disseminate actionable legal information to beneficiaries creating awareness about rights and entitlements guaranteed under various Indian laws and government schemes.  The Fellows will answer all legal questions that their audience has and assist them in navigating the legal system while enforcing their rights. The Fellows will help women and children navigate the justice system by taking up cases on their behalf and represent them in appropriate legal forums in Karnataka. 

Finally, they will also identify areas for collective action and work with the Nyaaya Team to take action. 

The Fellowship will help make law a tool for social change, strengthen the public interest law community, and make justice mechanisms accessible. 

It will close the last-mile gap in accessing justice by assisting underserved communities in navigating the justice delivery system.

Further, the fellowship will help create change by encouraging more people to approach and engage with justice and governance structures, be active citizens and hold state mechanisms accountable.

Take a look at the impact created by the first cohort of Samvidhaan Fellows – Samvidhaan Fellowship Impact Video

A Samvidhaan Fellow:

1. Is a highly skilled lawyer working with underserved communities who is fluent in Kannada.
2. Has a minimum of three years of litigation experience.
3. Takes up cases pertaining to women and children and represent them in appropriate legal forums
4. Has subject area expertise in labour rights, gender rights, or rights of marginalised communities .
5. Has worked on grievance redressal and understands the process.
6. Has demonstrated interest in legal awareness work in the past.
7. Has an understanding of social protection schemes and entitlements.
8. Is willing to build community skills on identified issues. 

Details of the Fellowship

This Fellowship will primarily be field-based. Fellows will need to either be located in Karnataka or should be ready to relocate there. The duration of the Fellowship will be 12  months. The Fellowship can be extended for another year based on the performance of the Fellows. 

Primary Tasks

1. Conduct legal awareness and capacity building sessions in association with KSLSA, WCD (Karnataka) and Nyaaya’s partner organisations focussed on empowering  people to understand and claim their rights and entitlements. 
2. Help women and children navigate the justice system and also take up cases on their behalf and represent them in appropriate legal forums in Karnataka
3. Answer legal questions received from beneficiaries of community-based organisations that Nyaaya collaborates with.
4. Identify issues concerning communities of partner organisations that require pro-bono litigation,policy intervention or strategic guidance for collective action and implement them with the help of Nyaaya  
5. Assist and advise partner organisations, volunteers, and community reporters on legal issues . 

Secondary Tasks  

1.  Create contextual, legal awareness content (written or audio-visual)  in their regional language for Nyaaya’s online community
2. Help volunteers and community members represent their issues in public hearings, etc. 
3. Compile modules for a peer group of district lawyers on the relevance of the Constitution in day-to-day practice

1. A monthly stipend and expenses for the cases taken up during the fellowship (on meeting deliverable deadlines)
2. Skill development training in legal content creation, media training and any other skills necessary for the Fellowship. 
3. Access to Nyaaya’a and Vidhi’s catalogue of books and e-subscriptions to various journals and publications to aid them in their work.
4. Connections to Nyaaya’s network of lawyers, community-based organisations, CSOs, and media persons, all driven by the mission of making the law and entitlements accessible to underserved communities.