Bringing Justice to the Doorstep: Inside LEWAF's PLATE Legal Aid Model

Sierra Leone's own Justice Sector Reform Strategy (2024–2030) is candid about a persistent gap: "legal aid centers are either too far away from remote communities and vulnerable groups." LEWAF's response has been to become an accredited Legal Aid Service provider in its own right, and to build its services around a model it calls PLATE.

What PLATE Stands For

Each letter is a distinct service LEWAF's community offices provide side by side: Paralegal service — community legal clinics and awareness sessions; Legal advice and information service; Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service; Trauma recovery service; and Education on gender laws and legal empowerment. Rather than referring women elsewhere for each of these needs, LEWAF's paralegals and social workers are trained to handle all five under one roof.

The model operates from four mediation offices: Calaba Town in Freetown's East End (Western Area Urban), Waterloo (Western Area Rural District), Moyamba Town (Kayamba Chiefdom), and Mokonde, Njala (Kori Chiefdom, Moyamba District).

What the Numbers Show

Between 1 February 2024 and 31 May 2025, under a Service Level Agreement with the Ministry of Gender and Children's Affairs, LEWAF's Calaba Town and Waterloo offices alone recorded 186 people physically visiting for services, with 129 cases officially admitted by LEWAF's social workers. Of those, 84 were resolved and closed through Alternative Dispute Resolution, 4 were referred to the formal courts in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Police, and 7 victims received financial aid to secure the medical reports needed for police investigations. The average time to resolve and close a case: just 4 weeks.

This work directly complements Sierra Leone's own Justice Sector Reform Strategy, which calls for legal aid outposts in hard-to-reach communities, mediation centers nationwide, and greater public awareness of ADR as a path to justice.

For a woman in a rural chiefdom, the difference the PLATE model makes is rarely abstract — it's the difference between a legal problem that goes unresolved for years, and one that reaches a fair outcome in about a month, from an office she can actually reach.