New Blog for Legal Education Micro-Charity CLEW

You may remember a guest column posted a few months ago here on Slaw written by John Claydon, titled Canadian lawyers making a difference in Cambodia.

In it, John describes how a five-lawyer Toronto firm, Bennett Gastle, established Cambodian Legal Education for Women (CLEW), a charity that gives full four-year scholarships to young women from rural areas who would otherwise be unable to obtain a university education.

These young women graduate with LLBs from Cambodia’s leading law school, and though most of them will not be able to join the exclusive and expensive Bar, the grads (several dozen to date) are putting their skills and knowledge to work in a multitude of ways that help to bring about change in real ways; including areas such as the status of women, indigenous rights, and land/property rights.

CLEW now has its own blog, entitled “Field Notes”, screen capture below:

According to its first post, the blog will “tell the story of Cambodia and its challenges. It will also tell the story of CLEW, its accomplishments and its challenges. In the course thereof, we will explain the growing pains we experienced and the lessons that we have learned. The purpose is to help anyone who is thinking of creating a micro-charity by giving them the benefit of our experience and helping them understand the issues that they may confront.”

Kudos to CLEW on their new blog. We look forward to learning from their experiences running a micro-charity.