An update from our Game Changer grantees.
In 2024, Banjima woman Keshi Moore and Palawa woman Maggie Blanden received a $5,000 Ember Connect Game Changer Grant to support their co founded initiative, Naarm Law Students.
Keshi and Maggie are recent graduates of Melbourne Law School who established Naarm Law Students to provide free community legal education for young people. Their vision is simple but powerful: to ensure young people have the knowledge and confidence to understand and assert their legal and human rights.
Over the past year, Naarm Law Students has continued to deliver a growing number of community legal education sessions. These sessions have primarily been delivered to high school students across Naarm and surrounding areas, as well as to a range of community organisations including public libraries and local community centres.
Through these partnerships, the initiative has been able to reach an increasingly diverse audience of young people and respond directly to the needs raised in these settings.
For the volunteer team behind the initiative, the work is deeply meaningful. Some of the most powerful moments come when we see young people becoming more confident in understanding and asserting their legal and human rights in so called Australia.
Building Partnerships to Expand Impact
Over the past 12 months, Naarm Law Students has also developed a strong relationship with the Victoria Law Foundation (VLF), collaborating to deliver several sessions together.
With the support of VLF’s sector expertise and community networks, and a shared commitment to accessible legal education, the partnership has helped the team reach broader audiences while refining their session content to better meet the needs of young people. This has included aligning elements of their sessions with the Victorian curriculum.
Education Designed for Young People
Naarm Law Students currently offers sessions on a range of topics that reflect the issues most relevant to the young people they work with. As always, the program is guided by the principle of being “for young people, by young people.”
Two of their most popular sessions focus on:
Renters’ rights
These sessions are particularly popular with residential colleges and high schools where young people are entering the rental market for the first time.
Understanding the Australian legal system
This session critically explores the settler foundations of Australian law while also introducing and discussing Indigenous law with students.
Both sessions have received strong engagement from schools and community organisations and have generated very positive feedback.
The team is also working closely with the Victoria Law Foundation and drawing on their research to design new sessions that reflect the issues currently affecting young people.
Growing the Next Generation of Legal Educators
Looking ahead, Naarm Law Students plans to expand its volunteer base beyond Melbourne University law students to include students from other Victorian law schools.
Several law students from RMIT have already joined the team, and recruitment will continue to broaden in order to strengthen the program’s capacity and impact.
The mission of Naarm Law Students remains clear: equipping young people with the legal and human rights knowledge they need to navigate the settler legal system of so called Australia.
Keshi and Maggie, together with the Directors and their dedicated team of volunteers, are grateful for the support that helped bring this work to life.
That support allows them to continue showing up for their community, creating spaces of care and trust, and delivering work that simply would not exist without it.