Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a two-part series about Elsa Zawedde, one of the first individuals to receive a BRIDGE Global South Fellowship, and her research developing and refining a “Obuntu-Bulamu” teaching model for law schools.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Elsa Zawedde has an inspiring vision that would change how law schools, particularly those in her home country of Uganda, develop lawyers.
Her vision, which she refined over the summer during her BRIDGE Global South Fellowship and will continue to work this semester, is to create a Obuntu-Bulamu (OBT) Teaching Model.
This model takes a transdisciplinary approach to introducing cultural humility in legal education in Ugandan law schools.
By creating this teaching model, the hope is that future lawyers can fully develop a professional identity centered on humility, humanity, and interconnectedness.
“This teaching model takes us back to who we are as Ugandans, and starting from who we are humbles us and helps us adopt cultural humility, something that I’m trying to implement into law schools,” Zawedde said.
Obuntu-Bulamu is a philosophy that embodies the concept of humanity and interconnectedness, emphasizing shared values such as generosity, compassion, consideration, and unity for collective well-being and a flourishing community.
With that in mind, Zawedde said her OBT model is anchored in four interrelated pillars:
Cultural humility in indigenous dispute resolution, which fosters respect for non-adversarial, restorative, and community-based justice practices, and
The Four Pillars: Breaking Down the Obuntu-Bulamu Teaching Model
The first pillar of the model looks at identifying how law schools can utilize transdisciplinary collaboration. One way to do this is through seminars.
“I encourage or ask that law schools have collaborative seminars with other schools that have made some progress in building professional identity so that the students learn to work together and learn from each other,” Zawedde said.
These seminars will focus on cultural humility and the social determinants of health because those are critical, Zawedde explained, in helping the professional see their client beyond what they assume is the client’s concern.
“You become more interested in their needs rather than just their issues,” she said.
The idea is that students will learn about these two concepts together and because those concepts have been emphasized in the medical profession, law students will get a chance to learn from medical students.
Then, when law students finish learning from their peers in the medical profession, the second pillar is activated— preventive lawyering, which equips learners to anticipate and address root causes of disputes before they escalate.
This component concerns partnerships and gives law students the opportunity to practice what they learned by teaming up with “Village Health Teams” in Uganda.
Village Health Teams are the health experts in their communities that were selected by the villagers to be their leaders in health and to teach them about healthy lifestyles.
Zawedde said that although these professionals are not doctors, they understand the basics of primary healthcare and have a strong sense of rapport with the communities they serve.
By having law students partner with these teams, the students are meeting people where they are to fully identify theirneeds in the context of their own community.
“They will hold the hands of law students and take them to where the people are so that they can interact with the people with an open mind so they can understand what their needs are and listen to them as humble people and not as experts,” Zawedde emphasized.
Additionally, by going in the field with Village Health Teams, these future lawyers help establish their own reputation, and they build trust with the communities they intend to serve.
This leads into the third pillar, which Zawedde identifies as cultural humility in indigenous dispute resolution.
Indigenous dispute resolution fosters respect for non-adversarial, restorative, and community-based justice practices and is an informal method used to resolve disputes without having to go to court. It’s this type of dispute resolution that is seen in Ugandan tribes, Zawedde said.
When learning about law, students are introduced to the formal dispute resolution process. This process, which is arguably the most common way to seek justice, defines the methods of taking someone to court, and that includes arbitration, adjudication, and litigation.
Unfortunately, Zawedde said the inclination to automatically go with a formal dispute resolution process led to a backlog of cases in Uganda.
“To train law students that the only form of justice is formal dispute resolution is to create question marks. (Someone might say), ‘How will I get justice if simply filing the case will take years before I’m heard? I’m going to spend years waiting to have my day in court and that might never happen," Zawedde said. “By challenging formal dispute resolution, we recognize that indigenous forms of dispute resolution are valid.”
She went on to explain that law students are taught that their business is in court, or their business is in arbitration, or that their business is in all the formal methods like mediation that the law thinks it’s concerned about.
But justice, she said, is pluralistic.
That’s why the third pillar challenges law students to not only consider alternate solutions to seeking justice for clients other than formal dispute resolution processes because they work but also encourages them to have cultural humility dialogues with arbiters or leaders that are resolving disputes within Ugandan communities.
Zawedde explained that having these conversations with arbiters helps those leaders recognize their own bias just as much as it helps the future lawyer, and it encourages both parties to practice critical self-reflection.
It’s about accountability for the lawyers and for the community arbiters, and Zawedde included the second part of the pillar to protect the most vulnerable in those communities and ensure they too get the justice they need.
Zawedde said having those dialogues that address internal bias emphasize that the individual or the client or the victim seeking justice is the expert in their lived experience, and the leader trying to resolve the dispute is not.
“(Indigenous dispute resolution) is not foreign; it is not imported. That form of justice is who we are,” Zawedde said. “We learned formal dispute resolution from the British but indigenous (justice) is ours, so it’s time for us to prioritize our form of community justice.”
The final pillar focuses on the active involvement of communities as co-educators. In other words, law schools would invite community members to enter the classroom as educators and share their experience and their expertise.
Doing so emphasizes that lawyers are humble and willing to learn from the community.
These community experts can host lectures, provide feedback, and share their opinions on how justice is achieved in the country.
On the flip side, it’s also a time for the law students to collaborate with these community members in the classroom setting thus allowing communities to be part of the solution that they want to see, and not for the lawyers to think they know it all.
By letting community members into this setting as experts, Zawedde said it sets up the course for creating impactful solutions for the justice system.
How has the Global South Fellowship benefited you?
Zawedde said there are two other ways she has benefited from the fellowship that stem beyond helping her develop her research and allowing her to contribute to her home, to the schools that helped make her who she is, and to the Global South.
The first of those ways is the mentorship she received from Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela, the former associate chancellor and vice provost for Global Affairs & Strategies, and Colleen Murphy, associate dean for academic affairs atthe College of Law and the newly appointed interim associate chancellor and vice provost for Global Affairs & Strategies.
“I have had the privilege of being mentored by Dr. Mabokela. She is the project lead; she is the superstar so being mentored by her allows me to learn from someone who is living it. She has modeled for me what it means to be humble. I enjoyed learning from her and have built a relationship with her that will go past this fellowship, I’m sure,” Zawedde said. “And I’ve been mentored by Dean Murphy. She is a role model, and I think every law student needs to interact with her and see how they can learn from her.”
Zawedde went on to say that during her fellowship, Murphy and Mabokela recognized her weaknesses and instead of criticizing her for them, they showed her how she can strengthen them.
Not only that, but she said both mentors were concerned about her as a person because they knew that if she was not doing well then, she wouldn’t be able to function or push her research further.
“It’s inspirational and (they) left their mark on me,” Zawedde said. “I cannot wait to be a Colleen Murphy to someone.”
Zawedde also benefited from the webinars she attended during the fellowship, the connections she made and the networking opportunities, the overall productivity she had with her research, and the support she had while she builtsomething great for her home country.
“Finally, I can’t forget about the way I was welcomed into the program by Global Relations. Sammer Jones (director for Global Relations) and Erica (Shuo Erica Wang, associate director for Global Relations) were very patient with me…and made me feel like, ‘Oh, wow these are people who are genuinely looking out for us,’” Zawedde said. “I have been a part of fellowships before that were not that good so I can’t take their kindness and help for granted.”
In the end, Zawedde reflected on everything she accomplished through the fellowship and said being able to expand her research has been exciting because it gave her the chance to give back to the schools that built her.
“It also allows me to contribute to the change and transformation I want to see in those law schools. It’s an honor and I’m very grateful to the Global South Fellowship for this opportunity,” Zawedde said.
Analicia Haynes is the storytelling and social media specialist. She can be reached at ahayn2@illinois.edu.