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Empowering Communities through Human Rights-Based Public Legal Education: A Collaboration Between the University of Glasgow and the Marie Trust
07/09/2025
Empowering Communities through Human Rights-Based Public Legal Education: A Collaboration Between the University of Glasgow and the Marie Trust
This podcast episode brings together various voices involved in the Glasgow Open Justice Public Legal Education project. Including Adam McIlwaine, Education Manager at the Marie Trust, who highlighted the charity's holistic approach to addressing the impacts of homelessness, including support through intervention and outreach work, counselling, and access to education through the charity’s Education Programme. Reflecting on the collaboration in the context of Scotland’s human rights agenda, Adam emphasised the importance of public legal education in supporting both service users and the Trust’s staff to develop sustainable legal knowledge. At the heart of the podcast is a wide-ranging conversation between workshop participants Neil, Lynn, and Eleanor, and law students Niamh Dennis and Jorgi Kelly. Participants reflected on the transformative impact of the project, sharing personal insights into how participating in the Education Programme and the law workshops, improved their confidence, well-being, and their capacity to advocate for their rights and the rights of others. Cameron Wong-McDermott and Nicole Marshall from GO Justice discuss looking ahead at their partnerships and developing the project. GO Justice and the Marie Trust plan to work in partnership to develop new workshops, and we are particularly interested in exploring creative methods such as legislative theatre, photography, and creative writing as engaging ways to promote rights awareness and understanding of the law. This summer, GO Justice will also be working with the British Red Cross’ Voices Ambassadors, people with lived experience of the asylum process, to design and facilitate workshops on housing rights. While often used in human rights discourse, it is difficult to define what is meant by the term ‘empowerment’, or even what it means to be ‘empowered’. This discussion, we hope, illustrates how collaborative learning environments in community settings can help build an understanding of the law, and ultimately, confidence in one’s ability to advocate for those rights. Community spaces, such as the Marie Trust, play a key, but often less visible role, in contributing to positive outcomes such as an enhanced sense of citizenship and social inclusion. These outcomes are difficult to quantify, creating challenges when measuring impact for funding applications.
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