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Over the months of April and May, hundreds of high school students throughout the province gained a new understanding of the legal profession as they tried their hand at arguing a mock trial in courtrooms throughout Ontario. After weeks of coaching sessions with lawyer volunteers, hours of legal research and after-school huddles with their team […]
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At 23, Ashley Harripersad is OJEN’s youngest employee. She brings specialized knowledge and experience that is greatly valued in our office. The insight she brings from being on the receiving side of the justice education experience is both helpful and inspiring.
OJEN’s experiential justice education programs for youth provide a powerful way to bring law to life. Mock trial programs – whether school-based competitive tournaments or community-based experiential activities – give young people the opportunity to learn about legal issues in a hands-on way.
Last year, Marie Reyes gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Selene. But just hours after her birth, Selene was taken away and placed in the care of Marie’s sister, thousands of kilometres away. Why? Because Marie is in prison for assault, a crime of violence. There is a program in Canadian federal prisons that allows […]
This February, Nicole, an education student at Lakehead University and a Project Officer for the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN) headed back to her alma mater, Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School (DFC) in Thunder Bay, to deliver a four session justice education project that compared and contrasted sentencing circles with sentencing hearings. The workshop took […]
Gabrielle is a graduate of two OJEN mock hearing projects delivered in partnership with the Malvern Family Resource Centre. She bubbles with enthusiasm when she talks about her experience. “Before I did the OJEN programs, I actually didn’t think much about the justice system,” Gabrielle said. “I learned some things in school, but it can […]
As my third and possibly final summer working with OJEN in Hamilton comes to a close, I am forced to reflect upon my time with OJEN and how it has come to change my life. Interestingly, I became involved with OJEN while in grade eleven, when I participated in a mock trial run by the […]
I’ve been in this justice education game for a while now. I’ve participated in programming for thousands of students, in classrooms, courthouse and communities. While developing this wealth of experience I’ve frequently contemplated the question of whether feedback or evaluation given by justice sector volunteers (“JSVs” -lawyers, judges and justices of the peace) is appropriate […]
In the 8 months I’ve been at OJEN, we have run a lot of mock trials. A lot of mock trials – dozens, maybe hundreds. They make up only about a fifth of the programs run by our college and university volunteers (the group I work with most), but that still adds up. And those […]