CLE Foundation provides weekly classes for the women at Wildflower Home, who often come from poor or marginalized communities and have little or no knowledge of legal matters. These classes teach basic legal rights and promote human rights awareness, emphasizing the importance of assertion of these rights. The regular classes raise the young women’s awareness of and knowledge about their legal and human rights in everyday situations, with the result that they are empowered to deal confidently with such issues in the future. The Initiative educates specifically about subjects that the young women are likely to encounter when they move on from the Wildflower Home and are establishing their own independent lives.

In collaboration with BABSEA CLE, CLE Foundation hosts a number of international volunteers, legal experts and interns from different countries. Many others come from neighbouring countries in the region including Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia. BABSEA CLE, who is partnering with CLE Foundation on this project, runs an externship program for students with many coming from law schools in the United States. BABSEA CLE also has a formal externship partnership with Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Participating interns, volunteers, and visiting experts all have a chance to teach and observe the lessons at Wildflower, allowing them to learn about the different cultures of the women (mostly Thai and indigenous) and the other interns (from all over the world).From this, participants can learn about local law and social issues and compare these to their home countries. After their experience at Wildflower, these international beneficiaries can learn from this exposure to real world problems as well as gaining an ethical sense of responsibility to the public and to marginalized communities, which they can then apply at home.

This year, Wildflower Legal Education Initiative has support from the United States Embassy under the Small Grant Program for Outreach to Society 2013. Their support to develop the curriculum to meet the women’s needs, and provide for the interactive teaching materials, which is a highly effective way to teach concepts that are sometimes not straightforward, is very meaningful for this project.