You could discover an excerpt of the interview with Mr Frédéric Loua, the Executive Director of Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous, our partner for the PARAJ project, "Support project for strenghtening access to justice for the most vulnerable persons" in our last Newsletter. 

Today, we offer you the full text!

Learn more about our projects through our partners. 

INTERVIEW : 

ASFF: Could you briefly introduce your organisation?

Me LOUA: Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT) is a Guinean non-governmental organisation (NGO) for the defence and promotion of human rights created by lawyers and jurists in 2006. Since 2006, MDT has been working in the field of criminal justice, but also in human rights education, legal and judicial protection of vulnerable people and legal and judicial support to communities affected by mining activities. MDT is represented in the four natural regions of Guinea. In order to better reach communities at the grassroots level, MDT relies on a team of lawyers and jurists as well as a network of paralegals for training, deployment and follow-up in the field. MDT has acquired a great deal of experience through its specialisation in facilitating access to justice for vulnerable people who are victims of various violations of their rights, and through its focus on the training and deployment of paralegals. Visits to places of detention (prisons and police custody centres) have been carried out and have provided free legal and judicial assistance to vulnerable people since 2006. To date, more than 7,500 people have benefited from this assistance. Over the past three years, MDT has provided direct legal assistance to approximately 350 women and girls and several thousand others have been affected by the various activities related to their protection. More than 200 actors in the criminal justice system and more than 300 social actors have benefited from adequate training on the protection of women and girls who are victims of gender-based violence.

ASFF: Why did you choose to "join forces" with ASF France and COGINTA for this project

PARAJ PROJECT?

Me LOUA: The commitment of the NGO Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT) to ASF France and COGINTA stems from our desire to share with you our experience in the field of access to justice for vulnerable people. We have a good knowledge of the field, in particular of the judicial system as a whole as well as of judicial procedures. Our organisation has already been involved in the first phase of the project with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and therefore has a good knowledge of the management of legal clinics. Finally, working with large international institutions such as ASF France and COGINTA will help our organisation to grow further in terms of project management in various forms (administrative, financial, programmatic etc.).

ASFF: What role will you play in this project in Guinea?

Me LOUA: On the basis of the partnership agreement signed between COGINTA (principal applicant) and the NGO Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT), we have been assigned the role of managing three legal clinics (Conakry, the capital, Kankan in Upper Guinea and N'Zérékoré in Forest Guinea) through :

v Visits to places of detention;

v Reception and analysis of the admissibility of needs or requests for legal and judicial assistance;

v Processing cases requiring legal assistance;

v The holding of criminal duty sessions by lawyers and jurists recruited by our organisation in the

courts in the target cities;

In short, our role is to help achieve the objectives of the PARAJ Project.