Street Law Caribbean has been formally established as a not for profit company registered under the laws of Jamaica. It has been sponsored in its establishment by Street Law South Africa, with backward linkages to Street Law Inc., which is established in the USA.
Street Law Caribbean has a clear development focus, and it has already entered into and will seek to enter into other functional cooperation arrangements with local, regional and international organisations, academic institutions, and other entities in support of community outreach and other initiatives.
The principal objective of Street Law Caribbean is to provide needs determined and demystified legal education to the general community in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean region. The programmes and initiatives to be undertaken will rely on interactive teaching and learning methods, where participants are fully involved and so empowered to themselves thereafter facilitate structured teaching and learning programmes in their own communities with guidance and support from centre. Overtime, Street Law Caribbean will engage in community-inspired advocacy for changes to the legal regime where it appears that change is necessary.
Street Law Caribbean will at one stage secure sustainability of its initiatives through collaborations with the Faculty of Law at Mona and UWI Open Campus. Already, Street Law is being touted as a pivotal UWI in the Community initiative and the possible benefits to be derived by UWI students are significant. In short, the programmes to be implemented, as is the case wherever Street Law programmes operate, will include significant involvement of Faculty of Law students in what is a clinical educational initiative. Students will be taught how to teach using the Street Law method, they will teach structured programmes to community groups in a supervised environment, and will receive credits towards their degrees for their Street Law involvement. For students, Street Law is intended to be a third year elective and the thinking, consistent with research clearly showing that teaching is the best way to promote learning, is that those students who elect to do Street Law will learn more and deeper and so become better graduates.
The Patron for Street Law Caribbean is the Most Honourable PJ Patterson, Former Prime Minister of Jamaica. An Advisory Board including Professor David McQuoid Mason, Founder of Street Law South Africa, has also been implemented. UHYDawgen are the Auditors, Mrs Arlene Supersad is Administrator, and Dr Christopher Malcolm is Executive Director.