statelessnessSPRING 2014 Universal Justice members continued their work on statelessness issues. Members partnered with OBMICA, a think tank that focuses on political and legal issues affecting Haitian-Dominicans. They also worked with CENTRO Bono, a legal advocacy group that organizes this community. This year’s trip focused on speaking with government officials to hear about their implementation of documentation laws. The group visited Mata los Indios, a community that UJ worked with for the previous four years.
SPRING 2013 Universal Justice members worked on statelessness issues, focusing their attentions on the poor rural community of Mata Los Indios. Generations of Dominican-born Haitian descendants live there without citizenship or access to documentation necessary for land ownership, social services, and other basic civic rights. The UJ members continued their work with Mata Los Indios by sending a Fordham student to the community to do a summer internship. They also continued advocacy in the capital, working with OBMICA and Centro Bono, the two organizational partners. UJ DR has produced press releases about the issue of statelessness and created a short film about their research. The team hoped that the products of their hard work would help their partner organizations and others working on these issues to have a stronger impact on the local communities. SPRING 2012 Universal Justice members went to the Dominican Republic to work on land rights and immigrant rights issues for the Haitian-Dominican community in Mata Los Indios. Many of the residents, although born in the Dominican Republic, are considered stateless - they have no identification, access to healthcare or education, nor property rights. UJ developed a partnership with the Social Enterprise Institute at Northeastern University to work on sustainable development projects in Cruz Verde and the neighboring community, Mata Los Indios. Through this trip, UJ established contacts with several NGOs on the ground in the Dominican Republic to continue the fight to acquire property rights and healthcare/education access for the community. UJ developed a report and created a documentary about the community in Mata Los Indios. |
lgbt rightsSPRING 2015 Universal Justice members participated in a fact-finding trip addressing the legal issues and treatment affecting LGBTI people in the Dominican Republic. UJ Members interviewed numerous legal experts, NGOs, and members of the LGBTI community to compile a report for the human rights blog of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. UJ members worked with include a Constitutional Court law clerk, an associate at a well-known international law firm, a photographer/documentary filmmaker, a gay pastor, and TRANSSA. Members also had the chance to observe legal proceedings in various Dominican courts.
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