Then

Leni Mulyani

Giving free legal education for the Children from the poor Family and for the former sex workesrs as the victims of sexual exploitation. I have learned so many things from APBC&A2JX , from the speakers also the Committee ( BABSEACLE team). I feel so thankful and honored to be a part of this amazing program. I  always want to help people, yet somehow i didn’t know how to do it back then. With The CLE program and all of the knowledge from my teachers I finally found the way to do so. Once Bruce Lasky told me, ” you don;t have to be a lawyer to have a lawyering skill ” he understood that becoming a criminal defence in my country was not easy especially when you are a woman. I chose my path to be an educator but with lawyering skill. From the Pro Bono Conference i concluded, pro bono is not always can be done by a lawyer but as a teacher you can do so many great things to help people to get an access to Justice.

Then

Patrick Burgess

Ten years ago I co-founded Asia Justice and Rights,  (AJAR) a non-profit organization based in Jakarta. Our mandate includes helping victims of injustice and mass human rights violations to more effectively seek justice and other forms of redress. We also work on empowering human rights and legal aid activists, developing regional and international linkages and advocating for policy and legal change relating to rights and justice. In the past decade, I have provided trainings to more than a thousand young lawyers, legal academics, human rights defenders and government officials across the Asia Pacific region, drafted policies and helped to draft the legal aid laws and amendments in Indonesia, Timor Leste, Myanmar and Vietnam. More than ever I am convinced of the value of grassroots legal aid lawyers and paralegals and spreading the belief that all lawyers will be happier and more effective if they contribute a portion of their time and talents to pro bono work. I have also increasingly been working on making films, TV series and music focused on legal aid, human rights and justice, with the goals of informing and inspiring large segments of the population about human rights and access to justice whilst entertaining them and maintaining engagement. The TV series in Myanmar and Timor Leste have been seen by more than eight million viewers.

 The APBC & A2 Exchange has helped me to do this work through increasing my knowledge about how others are achieving similar goals, connecting me to like-minded professionals and developing a close ‘family’ of collaborators involved in the events. This feeling of being part of a pro bono and access to justice community is essential to help us maintain our drive and spirit during the more difficult times that we all have faced during recent years. In particular, we continue to support in whatever way we can our colleagues in Myanmar and Afghanistan who are now in the front lines facing extreme injustice and rights violations. 

Then

Vidjia Phun

Being Updated