The need to improve legal awareness is a global challenge. There are 4 billion people worldwide who do not have access to the law. In addition to improving the lives of those who need it, legal education increases the ability of people to understand and use the law. Public interest law organizations in India, Cambodia, and Jordan assist migrant workers and farmers recover wages and passports that have been unlawfully withheld. Children in slums can demand clean water and sanitation.
While promoting access to justice and reducing misunderstandings about the formal justice system, legal awareness also helps increase the ability to protect one's own rights. Although legal awareness campaigns can be conducted by state institutions, they are most effective when carried out by civil society or through the media. The challenge of providing accurate and timely information to vast populations is daunting, but social networks like Facebook and Twitter are an important tool for these efforts.
Aside from improving access to justice, legal awareness helps promote a healthy family environment. In early childhood, the right to legal advocacy can help address issues that could otherwise lead to child protective services intervention. While many families experience a range of civil and non-criminal legal problems, only 20% of these families seek professional legal assistance. Fortunately, however, these numbers are beginning to improve. This is the result of a number of factors.
The goal of legal awareness campaigns is to improve access to justice and counter misunderstandings about the formal justice system
While legal awareness campaigns can be carried out by the state, the most impactful ones are those carried out through civil society and the media. The challenge is providing this information to massive populations. To make the effort more effective, people need to make use of social networks. They are a valuable tool for advancing legal awareness.
While public legal education campaigns can be conducted by the state or civil society, they are more effective when they engage civil society and the media. Because of the enormous size of these populations, providing such information is a major challenge. Hence, the use of trusted social networks can make legal awareness more effective.
Public education can help increase legal awareness and help ensure that people get the necessary legal services they need
The aim of public education should be to increase legal knowledge and reduce the number of barriers in accessing the justice system. In addition to the improvement in health indicators, legal education projects should encourage youth to pursue a career in the law. It also helps attract diverse talent to the profession. If a student understands how the law protects the individual, it will be more likely to want to go on to enter the legal field.
A key task of the legal empowerment movement is to translate grassroots efforts into large-scale policy changes. Currently available evidence suggests that this is possible. However, the success of these changes is largely dependent on the programmatic factors. There is little evidence to show that public education programs improve legal knowledge, but there is evidence that the changes facilitated by the program have a positive effect on health outcomes and attitudes.
Increasing legal awareness can improve people's chances of getting basic services that they need
Government benefits and disaster services are the most basic needs that need to be addressed by the legal system. For example, subsidized housing can help people with disasters. In addition, a lack of access to these types of services can create a vicious cycle. By improving legal capability, the government can make public education more appealing to young people.
The legal empowerment movement must translate its grassroots efforts into large-scale policy change to improve the health of people in the world. There are some promising examples. The Bjorkman and Svensson study shows that children's health improved after the program. These two studies are not the only successful examples, though. There are other programs, such as community scorecards and policy awareness campaigns, that can help improve public health and legal literacy.