The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria (LACON), has trained 200 para-legals in Gombe State under the “At-risk-Children” Federal Government project, aimed giving vulnerable children protection.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that At-Risk Children Project (ARC-P), is geared towards offering protection to more than nine million vulnerable children in the country.
Mr Aliyu Abubakar, the Director General of LACON, said the council was given a mandate to train and equip para-legals with skills that would enable them offer free legal advice and services to the vulnerable, especially children.
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Abubakar, who spoke on Wednesday in Gombe during the training, explained that para legal services were “those services people who are not lawyers render to poor or indigent people in the society.”
He said they were trained to know their basic rights and how to relate with other members of the society generally.
“Our daily activities are likely to cause some conflicts among the various people, they are trained on what to do and how to handle such challenges within their communities.
“Also, they can link the vulnerable to access the service of legal aid because we have offices across the country ,” he said.
According to him, a lot of Nigerians are ignorant of the fact that they are entitled to free legal advice from LACON, which has a national spread.
“We want Nigerians to know that they have such constitutional right in case of any unfortunate incident. The law is there for them,” the LACON boss said.
Miss Anita Amos, one of the beneficiaries commended the council for the training.
“Prior to this training, I did not know much about legal aid services, but now the training has broadened my horizon,” Amos said. (NAN)
