Spotlight on our Strategic Plan
Engage youth directly to increase the diversity of youth served
OJEN’s Justice Education Fellowship (JEF) program, launched in 2017, offers Law and Paralegal students training and experience delivering Public Legal Education (PLE) for youth. Since its inception, more than 70 students have learned about OJEN’s unique approach to PLE and gone on to deliver justice education programs in high school classrooms in their communities.
Justice Education Fellowships help OJEN expand the reach of our programs. The JEF program allows us to invest in students who demonstrate an aptitude and interest in public legal education to become more successful legal communicators and professionals.
Justice Education Fellow Profile
Christina Rajkumar
Christina Rajkumar is one of ten Law and Paralegal students who is currently completing OJEN’s 2024-25 Justice Education Fellowship program.
Christina joined the program as a second-year student at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School. Although she wasn’t aware of the Fellowship program before seeing a posting for it on the university’s career site, she was already familiar with OJEN. As a high school student, she had joined an after-school mock trial club and taken part in the OBA-OJEN Competitive Mock Trial (OOCMT) tournament. The experience of preparing for the competition and working with other people toward a common goal left a deep impression on her. Later, in her first year of law school, she volunteered with Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS) helping another high school mock trial club prepare for their OOCMT tournament.
“It was really fun,” Christina recalled. “I ended up taking the team to the competition. That was a full-circle moment for me and I think that’s when OJEN really caught my attention. OJEN just kept popping up in ways that I really enjoyed. Applying for the OJEN Fellowship made total sense for me.”
Before the start of the fall term, all the Fellows came together in the OJEN offices for 2 days of intensive training. Christina described it as a weekend retreat/workshop/bootcamp. The training covered OJEN’s approach to PLE, program models, facilitation strategies for youth audiences and resources to support classroom workshops. For her, the most interesting aspect of the training was learning about Public Legal Education. “I didn’t have a good understanding of what that was,” she commented. OJEN’s training helped clarify the role she could play in making the law accessible to the public.
“One thing I like about OJEN is that they emphasize that people are the experts of their own lives”, Chistina said. “Youth know their own lives really well because they live it. What we’re here to do is just share information so if they want to access it at some point in the future, they can. I really like the approach of just presenting information to youth and allowing them to engage in it but make their own decisions.”
Throughout the academic year, Fellows deliver a minimum of 3 justice education projects to high school audiences. Christina ran a Criminal Law and 2 Refugee Law workshops using OJEN’s Steps to Justice resources, as well as 2 sessions on My Journey to a Career in Law.
It was interesting to see how the students absorbed information, Christina commented. They were very aware of what was going on in the world and had a lot of questions about what they were learning about.
“I love working with high school students in particular,” Christina said. “I remember being that age myself. I had no family members who had been to law school or even higher education in general. It would have been so awesome to have one person who was exposed to this and took an interest in me. That is a feeling I really want to give to the students.”
Her favourite part of presenting to high school classes was making connections with students afterward. She responded to questions they sent her by email. “I’ve even helped with some university applications”, she said.
What will Christina take with her now that the Fellowship is coming to an end?
“One really tangible thing I’m taking with me are OJEN’s resources, which are incredible”, she said. “The Steps to Justice website (developed by Community Legal Education Ontario) is amazing. I use it all the time personally and I would definitely recommend it to others.”
“Coming to OJEN after my first year of Law school was a reminder of why I am doing this and why I enjoy this sector of the law. I think I really needed that. The first year of law school was very content heavy and a little daunting for me. Getting to see a career in law that I like and meeting a community of people in the legal field who I really resonate with is something I’m really grateful for. I know 100% that I will be involved in some kind of Public Legal Education going forward.”
Everyone at OJEN is grateful to Christina for her exceptional contributions to the Justice Education Fellowship program and wish her great success in her future endeavours!