On November 21st, OJEN Board of Directors, staff and special guests met at OJEN’s offices and online to celebrate our 21st year of justice education programming.
2023 was a year of change for OJEN. Many programs that had been delivered online during the pandemic, transitioned to in-person or hybrid delivery models. We piloted new programs and took the first steps toward implementing our new strategic plan together with a new executive director. It marks an exciting and challenging new chapter in OJEN’s history.
The meeting began with staff presenting on some of the many programming achievements of the past year. A few of the programs highlighted include:
PLEI for Racialized Communities is a new culturally relevant and responsive PLEI project for racialized youth, specifically youth ages 14-29 who identify as Black (African and Caribbean) and Indigenous living in urban areas in Ontario. The program focuses on building legal life skills and fostering connections between youth, community partners, and local legal professionals.
Apps for Justice presents high school students with the challenge of finding technology-based solutions to access to justice problems. This program was successfully piloted this year and will officially launch in 2024.
OJEN’s Justice Education Fellowship program now includes 8 law students from Ontario law schools and 2 paralegal students. Several of this year’s Fellows continued their involvement with OJEN after the program ended in a variety of work or volunteer activities.
Braiding Diversity into Justice is a full-day program for racialized or marginalized young women (cis and trans) who are interested in pursuing a career in justice. Developed by OJEN’s Waterloo committee in 2018, this year committees in Sudbury, Ottawa and Durham organized events in their regions as well. Plans are underway to offer it in other locations as well.
Tate’s Tableaux organizer, Ted Herbert, attended the meeting and presented OJEN with a cheque representing the proceeds from the annual event, held in October. He also presented the Tate Herbert Memorial Post-Secondary Award to the 2023 recipient, Herman Wong.
Board co-chair, Justice Breese Davies, thanked OJEN staff, as well as the Board of Directors, for their efforts during an extraordinarily busy and successful year.
Herman Wong receives the 2023 Tate Herbert Memorial Post-Secondary Award from Ted Herbert. The award recognizes a post-secondary student volunteer who has exceeded expectations and made a significant contribution to OJEN’s justice education initiatives.
Ted Herbert presents a cheque with proceeds from Tate’s Tableaux to Board co-chairs, Justice Breese Davies and Luis Filipe. The annual event, which has run for the last 10 years, commemorates the life of Ted’s son, Tate, and raises funds for OJEN. This year the event raised over $8600.