Empowering Communities for Intersectional Justice and Litigation
101215016 – EQUAL
The EQUAL project supports marginalised communities and lawyers to pursue intersectional, community-driven strategic litigation under EU law, including under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The two-year project is implemented between 2025 July and 2027 June in 4 EU countries: Czechia, Greece, Italy and Hungary. The project consortium includes:
- Awen Amenca from Czechia (project coordinator)
- Dzsaj Bhim Community from Hungary
- European Roma Rights Center from Greece
- Forum for Human Rights from Czechia
- Greek Council of Refugees from Greece
- Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights from Italy
- Pro bono publico from Greecee
- Validity Foundation from Hungary
Project Objectives
Strategic litigation can protect fundamental rights and drive systemic change when rooted in the lived experiences of marginalised communities.
Yet racialised communities, disabled people, and others at risk of exclusion continue to face major obstacles in accessing justice include:
- discrimination
- limited legal support
- lack of trust in institutions
- legal systems that treat issues in silos rather than through an intersectional lens.
As a result, strategic litigation efforts often fail to fully reflect the communities most affected by rights violations.
The EQUAL project strengthens the capacity of communities, human rights lawyers, and other stakeholders to advance intersectional and community-driven strategic litigation under EU law, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Implementation Methods
- Community empowerment: Build knowledge and skills within marginalised communities by providing tools, information and training to understand and defend their rights and engage with legal professionals and fundamental rights bodies.
- Focus group research: Conduct focus groups with marginalised communities, legal professionals and fundamental rights bodies to identify key barriers to accessing justice and inform project actions.
- Setting-up community paralegal teams and legal clinics: Create community-based paralegal teams and local legal clinics to bridge the gap between affected communities and legal experts, reduce barriers to justice and enable early legal support.
- Intersectional capacity building: Deliver training for legal professionals and fundamental rights bodies to strengthen intersectional approach.
- Advocacy and legal actions: Use evidence from the project to inform advocacy efforts at national and EU level, promoting better understanding and uptake of intersectional and community-driven strategic litigation and policy-making.
Full Name of the Project
Empowering Communities for Intersectional Justice and Litigation (101215016- EQUAL- CERV-2024-CHAR-LITI).
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.