Human Development Initiativess... initiatives make life better.

A centre providing free legal and psychosocial counseling services was inaugurated in 1998 to address diverse forms of challenges widows encounter as a result of the demise of their spouse. These include the procurement of letters of administrations where the husband died intestate. i.e. without a will:

• Free legal counseling is given to enlighten widows of their rights and legal status so as to protect themselves from violation and abuse of their rights. In addition ,young people are served pro bono services on request .

• The widowhood rights mediation with external organizations enables HDI interpose between widows and employers of their deceased spouses, public establishment, and family/relations.

• Mediation and conflict resolution activities are sometimes carried out by HDI to maintain peace between widows and the late husband’s family member.

Medical/Health Intervention (Annually)
A day has been set aside yearly where widows have access to free medical/health screening, consultation and OTC drugs. A medical team put together provides these facilities along side psychosocial counseling. A unique feature of this strategy is the referral of widows with unsuspected health challenges for further treatment in General Hospitals.

Free legal counseling:
Widows are enlightened of their rights and legal status so that they can protect themselves from violation and abuse of their rights. The widowhood rights mediation with external organizations also enables HDI interpose between widows and employers of their deceased spouses, public establishment, and family/relations.

HDI further consolidated and strengthened its legal and psycho-social advocacy in the course of the year. This was mainly through The legal and psycho-social counseling for widows to protect their rights and promote their quality of life and those of their children. The following services were provided by the organization’s legal unit during the year under reporting: Counseling widows and adolescents, procurement of Letters of Administration, Procurement of Clients’ Entitlements from third parties and Mediation. Utilization of the HDI’s Legal and Psycho-social Counseling Units increased significantly during the year and this could be traced to increase impact of the unit on its clients.

For increase efficiency and impacts, the HDI Off-site legal clinics were taken to the communities. This was to enable the vulnerable groups who were HDI’s clients assess the services without hindrance of any sort. On 14th April, 2010, Human Development Initiatives organized a Legal Clinic for the widows’ group in Bariga Local Government Area of Lagos state. The Legal Clinic provided the widows with information about their rights as widows and encouraged them to avail themselves of the free services the Legal Unit offers especially to widows who are vulnerable members of the society. At the Legal Clinic, the Legal Officer spoke on the topic “Widows and their Legal Rights”. The rights discussed at the Legal Clinic include-

The right to their deceased husbands’ estate without any interference.
The right to custody of their children.
The right not to be subjected to any forced and harmful traditional mourning practices.
The right to be free to contract a subsequent marriage with another man without been deprived of her deceased husband’s property.
The right to legal services. The widows were informed that if they could not afford legal representation, there are some government agencies for example OPD and NGOs like HDI that can provide free legal services to them.

During the Legal Clinic some widows sought legal advice and assistance from the Legal officer on various issues. Cases requiring follow up were referred to the office for proper actions.