Who we are
Next Generation Lawyers-Kenya (NEXTGEN) is a female-led non-profit that seeks to promote innovation and partnerships to deliver Legal Empowerment for underserved communities. By buidling strong community-legal partnerships, legal knowledge and skills are accessible to support initiatives that are identified and driven by the community.
Our network of legal professionals and community paralegals advance legal and social justice causes for individuals and communities experiencing the worst forms of abuse, injustice and exclusion.
We seek to design and deliver high impact community-driven legal solutions that offer more coverage, greater adaptability and long-term sustainability. Using evidence generated through our work we hope to promote adequate support, increased investment in legal assistance and progress justice reform.
Our Vision:
For all, Justice
Our Mission:
To Empower and Support Underserved Communities to Understand, Use, and Shape the Law.
Our History
This initiative was founded in 2018 by Katindi & Company Advocates as a way of availing quality legal representation to underserved populations within neighbouring informal settlements of Kibera and Kawangware in Nairobi. It soon became apparent that the limited legal aid, availed by NGOs mostly to vulnerable communities, remained largely inaccessible to drug users and sex workers. We found that these populations experienced intersecting vulnerabilities which exposed them to multiple-legal problems. Available legal aid programs were either unable or unwilling to provide the much-needed legal assistance.
NEXTGEN Lawyers responded by building legal capacity and ensuring legal knowledge and skills were channeled to empower members and communities of key populations address violence, injustice and advance reform. Our model addresses two gaps in society: the challenge of limited opportunities to gain legal working experience by young legal professionals, and the unmet legal need among underserved communities. Establishing effective connection between them enables legal professionals to use the law to place indivuduals and communities in more control over decisions and actions that most impact their lives. The NEXTGEN Lawyers legal empowerment model which is centered around community-legal partnerships brings relevant information, skils and resources into the community where they can be used to inform solutions to problems by those most directly impacted.
To scale up impact, NEXTGEN Lawyers – Kenya needed to expand beyond its current role within a few communities to an organization poised to share its work nationallly and regionally. We formlally registered in 2021 as a non-profit for the legal empowerment that serves all underserved populations. Armed with a solid service-delivery foundation and a succesfully tested model, NEXTGEN Lawyers is well positioned for expansion.
Our Core Values
- Respect – We acknowledge the value of others’ ideas and experiences, even when disagreeing.
- Equity – We acknowledge that different social, cultural and economic circumstances influence and inform each person’s lived experience and are intentional in ensuring we address problems that most affect them.
- Integrity – We make principled decisions that earn the trust of the people who use our services, our staff, and partners. We are accountable for our actions and processes by ensuring they are responsible and transparent.
- People-Centered – We ensure that those most in need and least likely to have access are targeted and that solutions are responsive to their needs. We work independently and jointly in partnerships fundamental to our success.
- Promote Rule of “good” Law – We will operate within processes, practices and norms that support equality, advance fairness and promote accountability. We will obey the law even when we disagree, but challenge and work to change injustice.