Background
More than 54 percent of the people in India haven’t heard of Mediation. Some confuse it with medi’t’ation or think it is the same as arbitration. West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (WBNUJS) in collaboration with ODRWays organized the first ever Indian Mediation Week (IMW), a pan-India mediation awareness event, from 11-17 September 2017.The event was supported by Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India and Supreme Court Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee (MCPC). To know more about what happened at IMW’17: click here.
This year we are proud to announce the second edition of Indian Mediation Week which is scheduled to be held on December 10th to 16th, 2018. The Indian Ministry of Law and Justice has been an entity that partnered with us in our first edition of Indian Mediation Week in 2017. Based on the progress and success of the event, we have been encouraged for the next edition (IMW’18) to be expanded to a larger scale. For this, we are looking for students who are passionate about mediation and improving access to justice in India. The primary responsibility of the student ambassadors is to organize mediation awareness activities in their respective cities. These mediation awareness activities can range from mediation awareness drives to mediation training programmes to creative activities such as flash-mob, street plays etc.
What is a mediation awareness drive?
In a mediation awareness drive, you directly engage with the public and tell him/her about the process of mediation. For example, students of NUJS, Kolkata in collaboration with the NUJS legal aid society have organized 37 mediation awareness drives till now. We have engaged with around 2853 people and have received around 272 disputes/legal issues. With the help of ODRways, we collaborated with mediators in Kolkata, who have agreed to provide pro-bono mediation service for the cases we get from these mediation awareness drives. Also, some people had legal issues such as getting a registered probate will from court, making affidavits, birth certificates or they need some legal guidance. In those situations, the NUJS legal aid society tried to help them. Find more about steps to conducting mediation awareness drive here.
Target-1000 Mediation Awareness Drives
Last year, IMW operated completely out of Kolkata and had student ambassadors from other cities helping in the coordination of bringing together other cities for the movement. The plan this year is for Team IMW’18 to make a personal physical presence in 4 cities during the week and of course, increase the number of student ambassadors to involve more cities. The plan is to hit 4 metropolitan cities, Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and hopefully expand to more if we manage to do so. The aim is also to bring other cities that were not previously on the map to join the movement. The target number of mediation drives to be held in India is now 1000. This entails an increase in the number of student ambassadors, resources, workload, events, partners, collaborations etc.
Better Rewards for Student Ambassadors: Get Felicitated in Delhi
Due to the increased requirements that need to be fulfilled by the student ambassadors, the Top 5 Student Ambassadors will be felicitated in the closing ceremony of Indian Mediation Week in Delhi on December 16th, 2018. The top 5 will also receive ADR internships from various partners of Indian Mediation Week. Exclusive to the Top 3 will be a cash prize of Rs.10,000 each for the outstanding contribution as a student ambassador for promoting mediation and for improving access to justice in India. Their travel and stay will be sponsored by team IMW. This will be a wonderful networking opportunity for students as lawyers, judges, law firm partners, members of the government, ADR practitioners from across the country will be present here.
Each student ambassador is supposed to conduct a minimum of 20 mediation awareness drives in their city from the period of 15th June-15th November 2018.
The launch of Mediation Embassy: A platform to track the progress of Student Ambassadors across the country http://indianmediationweek.com/mediation-embassy.php
Indian Mediation Week has designed an online platform for student ambassadors where one can live track the progress of mediation awareness in a city, and check the leader board position and progress of each student ambassador. To know more about the process and manner of conducting mediation drives, all the required information can be found here in our ‘FaQs’ and ‘Resources’ section of mediation embassy.
Application Procedure
Interested students can send their applications at info@indianmediationweek.com. It should contain the following:
a. Resume
b. Bio (less than 250 words)- Your bio should include your introduction and your tentative plan of action to promote mediation in your city (the areas you plan to conduct a mediation awareness drive in, other mediation-related activities). This will be used for your social media introduction here.
c. Photograph- For social media purposes.
Final deadline is 8th June, 2018.
If there are any further queries, feel free to get in touch with , Pranjal Sinha +91-8337030883; Akshetha Ashok +91-9620606424 or Rohit Sharma +91-9062565741 To know more about what happened at IMW’17: Click here.
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