Appleseed Mexico is building a pro bono movement

​Dear Friends,

Appleseed Mexico was founded in 2003 with a mission to strengthen the country’s civil society organizations and provide systemic legal support for vulnerable communities. A key component of Appleseed Mexico’s work has been building up a thriving pro bono culture in Mexico to help more, and to help better.

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​As they work to promote human rights, prevent violence, and reform the justice system, civil society organizations in Mexico face steep challenges. To help these crucial organizations navigate legal issues and to ensure their legal compliance, Mexico Appleseed created the Pro Bono Network to provide training, legal manuals, and other support materials to Civil Society Organizations, making sure they have the expertise required to meet their legal obligations and offer top-notch legal advice.

Appleseed Mexico launched a new web app to receive and manage legal aid cases, along with a digital monitoring and evaluation dashboard, which includes access to a compliance self-evaluation tool for CSOs, as well as a library of important compliance resources.

These programs are reinforced by the Mexico Pro Bono Network that Appleseed Mexico founded in 2008, which has fostered a pro bono movement in the country. In the wake of the tragic 2017 earthquake, for example, Appleseed Mexico’s Pro Bono Network and its allies sprang into action, providing rapid and effective free legal advice to families suffering from the disaster. This work built on the disaster response work of other Appleseed centers, including Texas Appleseed’s advocacy after hurricanes in that state, South Carolina Appleseed’s work after that state’s historic flood in 2015, and Louisiana Appleseed’s disaster relief legal training manual.

Natural disasters are not isolated to Mexico or the United States, and neither are the complex social issues our communities face. From trade agreements, to immigration, to civic reforms, the communities of Mexico and the United States are deeply interconnected. As a bi-national network, Appleseed is able to dive deeply into the roots of these interconnected issues, building more sustainable and more dynamic results.

Please reach out to me (bmagnuson@AppleseedNetwork.org) if you would like more information about the Appleseed Network’s pro bono advocacy. And thank you for your support of our bi-national network!

Sincerely,
Benet Magnuson
Interim Executive Director
The Appleseed Foundation