Amy Fallon reporting at IPS News:
More hereWhen Gerald Abila received an iPhone as a gift almost two years ago, the Ugandan law student didn’t just use it to text his friends. He used it to create what would eventually become the first entity of its kind in East Africa — a tech savvy, multi-award winning, organisation that uses Facebook, Twitter, SMSes, and radio and television partnerships to provide free legal advice and consultations.
“I’d be in class but at the same time I was Tweeting and on Facebook,” the 31-year-old lawyer tells IPS. “So many legal questions would come up so I thought let me start a Facebook group. It was just me giving free advice.”
"The future of law is in IT, not law itself." -- Gerald Abila, Barefoot Law’s founder and managing director Abila set up the Facebook group back in 2012 before he graduated from Kampala International University with his law degree. What began as a Facebook group with just 100 members, whom Abila helped every Saturday from 3 to 4pm, has now grown into Barefoot Law, a not-for-profit organisation with over 16,000 online followers and an Android app.
“I moved around the country and after that I decided to turn this into an organisation because access to legal services is a nightmare,” Abila, Barefoot Law’s founder and managing director, says.
“It’s like the health sector – you only go to a doctor when you start feeling sick. You only go to a lawyer when there’s an issue you go to court over.”
At the start, the Barefoot Law team worked remotely. Only four months later did they set up offices in Bukoto, Kampala.
Today the organisation has seven full time volunteers, including a tech person operating from Germany. They receive about 50 queries a day on a variety of issues via social media platforms, Skype, email, phone calls and SMSes.
