Aims of my Churchill Fellowship
The Stateless Legal Clinic has been met with a consistent and high demand for assistance by
members of the Australian stateless community since its establishment in 2021. The Clinic is
poised to develop and expand in scope and capacity as a national service provider for stateless
adults, as well as children, the first steps towards this expansion were successfully taken
immediately after my Fellowship in early 2024.
As the only legal service of its kind in Australia, my Fellowship sought to visit similar international
legal services, as well as expert organisations and individuals working on the issue of childhood
statelessness. My aim was to understand how these more established comparative models operate
and function, to implement broader service delivery for stateless children in Australia. I also aimed
to understand how the Stateless Legal Clinic may be successfully expanded to assist stateless
adults, as well as children.
Through meeting with expert organisations and individuals working on the issue of statelessness
more broadly, I aimed to understand successful models for law reform and government
engagement on this critical human rights issue that may be applied to the Australian context.
Details concerning the organisations and individuals I met on my Fellowship, including key
learnings from each stage of my Fellowship and how they may be applied to the benefit of the
Australian community are discussed in Part 3 of this Report, below.
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