If you’re interested in being part of an idea that can change your life, and more importantly, those of underprivileged children, read on.
IDIA is a pan India project that seeks to enhance access to quality legal education in favour of underprivileged communities. We are now looking for passionate and dynamic student volunteers to join our various teams and catapult us to the next stage of growth.
IDIA is formally structured as a trust with four trustees including Justice Ruma Pal (Former Judge of the Supreme Court), Prof MP Singh (Former Vice Chancellor of NUJS and Current Chairman of Delhi Judicial Academy), Shishira Rudrappa (Founder of Spire Capital and Bar & Bench) and Prof Shamnad Basheer (MHRD Chair Prof of IP Law, NUJS).
However, it is effectively run by some very passionate and dedicated student volunteers from various law schools across the length and breadth of India. Little wonder then that, in a short span of two years, IDIA managed to achieve some modest success, with 30 of its scholars (the underprivileged children selected by IDIA for coaching) making it to the leading NLU’s. Our diverse scholars include children of stone quarry workers, farmers, panipuri vendors, painters, drivers, clerks, shopkeepers and many others belonging to marginalized communities. Braving severe odds, they managed to make it to the leading law schools.
For more details on IDIA and the profiles of our scholars, please visit our website.
Our job does not end with these scholars gaining admission to these coveted National Law Universities. Our real work begins then! The key challenge is in helping these scholars navigate highly challenging law school ecosystems that are for the most part diversity unfriendly. Our aim is to offer the best possible legal education and opportunities for our scholars, such that they blossom to their full potential…becoming not just leading lawyers and luminaries, but also social engineers and community leaders, particularly for the communities that they represent.
Our Teams: From its inception in March 2010 till today, passionate law students from various law schools have come together to build more than 20 different teams across India. It is the blood, sweat and tears of these dedicated students (called “IDIANS”) that has helped IDIA achieve significant impact in a short span of two years. We have state teams as well as All India Verticals as below.
State Teams: Karnataka, kerala, Hyderabad, Bengal, Sikkim, Mizoram, Assam (North East), delhi, Mumbai, Kashmir, MP, Jodhpur, Gujarat, UP, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa (17 local teams)
All India Verticals: Our all India verticals consist of the following teams
- RAP (Research and Policy)
- Admissions and Scholarship
- Media and Publicity
- Website, Blog and Social networks
- Rural Initiative
- Disability Initiative
- Fund Raising
- Training and Materials Preparation
- Mentorship
- Core Policy and Implementation
All details of our teams are available here.
Eligibility: Join us if you think you have the potential and dedication to change the lives of those who are less fortunate than you. They need your time, guidance and support to make it to the best law schools in the country and realize their dreams of empowering their community. We prefer stars that shine bright the whole year to meteors that blaze for a short while and then fizzle out! Therefore we are specifically looking for team members who’d be willing to work the year around and dedicate themselves to the cause. We prefer to pick team leaders from amongst those volunteers that have already served IDIA and provided commendable support. And of the volunteers picked this year, we will be looking forward to grooming many of you as team leaders.
What the job entails: Depending on the kind of team that you pick, you could visit schools to sensitize students about law as a career, teach selected students for CLAT, mentor our scholars who are already in law school on how to cope with academics, prepare questions for aptitude tests, research on issues of diversity, reservations and scholarships, facilitate admissions of students, co-ordinate with media and funding agencies etc.
How to apply: Send us your CV along with a short statement of purpose on why you want to join us. If you wish to apply for any particular state chapter or vertical, please mention it in your application. If you are unsure about which team to join, don’t worry! We will allot you a team depending on your profile. You could also speak to our team leaders to get a better sense of the work of each team. Write to us at info@idialaw.com for more details and to be a part of this movement.
Apart from team members, we’re also looking for someone to head our IDIA Disability Vertical as a team leader. If you’re specifically interested in this post, please email us at info@idialaw.com.
Lastly, even if you do not wish to join a team specifically but are interested in being updated on IDIA activities, please feel free to join the IDIA email list, by dropping an email to info@idialaw.com indicating your interest in joining our list (where we discuss IDIA updates and important policy issues).
Would like to join the movement, but I donot have a law-background.