Amplifying Grassroot Voices

Amplifying grassroots voices is essential to shifting power dynamics and ensuring that marginalized communities play a meaningful role in decision-making. By elevating grassroots perspectives, the Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF) helps those most affected by injustice advocate for their own needs, fostering a truly participatory movement.

Recognizing the growing interest among grantee partners in developing their communication strategies, the LEF leverages digital platforms as accessible and democratic spaces for them to share their stories, expose systemic issues, and drive change. Support from the LEF includes promoting grantees’ work through its social media channels while also providing resources to help them build their platforms. This amplification enables them to mobilize their communities locally and internationally, ensuring people know, use, and shape the laws that impact them.

To further promote its grantee partners, the LEF shares their stories through various platforms. Launched in September 2024, the LEF website provides an up-to-date and professional space for stakeholders to receive grantee partner updates. Particularly, the Stories and Updates section highlights grassroots efforts such as Fishing for Justice: How Coastal Communities in the Philippines Are Fighting for Their Rights, showcasing advocacy in environmental justice. Additionally, the LEF’s presence on social media platforms expands the reach of grantee achievements, fostering greater awareness and support for their causes.

Greater visibility also strengthens the broader legal empowerment movement. To ensure community-driven solutions take center stage, the LEF facilitates access to international forums where grantee partners and the LEF representatives can engage peers, policy makers, funders, and other stakeholders. By sharing key insights and lessons the LEF, contributes to global conversations and learning on legal empowerment, promoting sustainable community-driven solutions and systemic change.

The LEF’s digital amplification of the plight of grantee partners also serves as a rapid response tool, amplifying the voices of grantee partners facing urgent justice issues and mobilizing support, and potential solutions in times of crisis. For example, when coastal fishing communities in Sitio Kabilang Ilog in Barangay Capuntian Orion, Bataan, Philippines, faced mass evictions to pave the way for development projects, the LEF highlighted their situation on social media. As a result, the LEF’s grantee partner received messages of solidarity and strategic advice from organizations around the world facing similar challenges. Civil society groups in the Philippines offered direct support.

Image (Above): Community mobilization session in Sitio Kabilang Ilog, Bataan, Philippines.

In collaboration with the Mott Foundation, LEF conducted two content-gathering trips to document the impact of its support for grassroots organizations advancing social justice, economic rights, and environmental advocacy. Filmed in Kenya (October 2024) and Mexico (January 2025), the videos feature interviews with key leaders from grantee partners including Mathare Social Justice Centre, Pamoja Trust, Amka Africa Justice Initiative, INSADE, and OCNF. The videos capture their efforts to empower marginalized communities and promote legal rights. To further amplify their voices on a global stage, these productions will be showcased at the World Justice Forum in June 2025, highlighting the critical role of legal empowerment in driving systemic change and influencing international conversations on justice and equity.