The legal aid clinics began as pilot projects and in course of time, these proved effective in hearing and redressing the grievances of the poor beneficiaries of the clinics, mainly slum dwellers.
The law students conducted legal literacy campaign among slum dwellers and arranged for mediation with the objective of settling their disputes. A trainee-advisor, an experienced lawyer and an Assistant Professor of Law supervised their work for the Legal Aid Clinics in Dhaka, Rajshahi and Chittagong respectively.
During April 2005 to March 2006, five legal aid clinics made a collaborative effort to raise legal awareness amongst 23,344 persons. Out of these, 5,151 persons were male, 17,351 were female and 842 were children. (Annexure 9)
Awareness training:
Five legal aid clinics were involved in raising legal awareness through awareness training. BLAST conducted 234 training sessions amongst the workers, poor and disadvantaged people of their clinic area, each session having three-hour duration and 25-30participants. A total of 6,701 persons participated in these 234 training sessions during April 2005 to March 2006.
Following subject discussed among the participants.
For general clients:
Marriage (Muslim, Hindu), divorce, child marriage , polygamy , dower, maintenance, guardianship, dowry, arrest without warrant, general diary(GD), First Information Report (F.I.R), fundamental human rights, in particular rights, personal liberty, freedom from arbitrary arrest and torture etc .
For garments workers:
Working hours, overtime, minimum wages, leaves and holidays, compensation, handling of grievances, retrenchment, termination, discharge, dismissal, resignation, benefits for workers, health and hygiene, misconduct of the workers, different welfare and some tips for the workers to establish their rights
Door- to- Door Awareness:
Five legal aid clinics conducted awareness campaign for the beneficiaries of the clinic areas by trained trainers and awareness workers to raise legal awareness amongst 14,013 persons through door- to- door awareness activity.
In- house and yard meeting:
Five legal aid clinics conducted issue-based awareness activities by trained trainers amongst 2,630 persons through in-house and yard meetings. Last year, these clinics made 3,336 persons of selected areas aware of the activities of BLAST through discussion meetings with local people, representatives of different NGOs and students.