Legal Aid & Counselling Staff
Bernadette Iyodu
Legal Officer – Bernadette joined RLP from the private sector in January 2006, but had previously interned with us in 2003, and found one of the motivating factors for coming was her experience at the RLP. She has since been heavily involved in cases for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as visiting Rhino Camp in Arua as part of a research team.
Fred Lulinaki
Legal Volunteer – Fred has been serving at the RLP since July 2005. He has been involved with opening up cases, translation, providing social and legal advice, and securing the release of detained refugees. Over the course of the last two years, he went on field research trips to Kyaka II and Rhino Camp. He plans to get involved in publications and further studies in the future.
Godwin Mindrea Buwa
Legal Officer – Currently our longest serving legal officer, Godwin came to RLP in September 2002. He has been actively involved in representing refugees all over the country, sometimes going as far afield as Arua.
Salima Namusobya
Senior Legal Officer – Salima initially came to RLP as a Legal Officer in 2005, but was appointed Head of Department when the previous Senior Legal Officer departed in November 2005. She is responsible for managing the department and has been involved in a wide variety of activites including collaborations with other departments such as with Research & Advocacy to Kyaka II in 2005, or with Education & Training in 2006 on training Immigration Officers and stakeholders in Kitgum and Gulu on IDP rights.
John Alex Njuba
Legal Officer – John Alex joined us in March 2005 as a legal fellow and eventually was appointed a legal officer in October 2005. He has been actively involved in numerous cases, including assisting refugees threatened with deportation, defense of refugees in criminal cases, inter-country tracing, and research into the legal implications of the new Refugees Act 2006 and providing consultancies to other organisations on these matters.
Kenechukwu C. ESOM
Legal Officer – Ken's first contact with RLP was in 2006 during his LLM research. He did a two-month internship with RLP and decided to join the team in September 2007 as a legal officer. He is involved in representation of refugees and asylum seekers before relevant authorities, among other responsibilities. He has a specific interest in the rights of refugee children. Ken finds working with refugees 'deeply fulfilling'.
Eunice Owiny
Senior Counsellor – Eunice joined us when we expanded the legal aid department to include counselling services in April 2005. Together with her volunteers, Eunice is responsible for giving psychosocial support to refugees, visiting and keeping tabs on those with longer term problems, and coordinating healthcare services available to refugees in Kampala. She has also been an integral member of the research and legal aid teams that have visited the field to provide on site counselling in the refugee settlements.
Leon Musafiri M.
Volunteer – Leon's relationship with RLP started in February 2004. As a member of a refugee associaton, ASSOREF, he helped fellow refugees with language interpretation during their interviews with legal officers. In April 2007 he joined the Research & Advocacy department as an intern, and then later moved to the Legal Aid & Counseling department as a Volunteer performing duties such as file opening, language, interpretation, document translation, client location, as well as coordinating refugees' meetings with UNHCR. He was part of a team that conducted a survey on "Local Integration of Refugees and the Host in Uganda".
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* For reasons of privacy, some staff members requested for their profiles or photos not to be placed on the website.