Editing Empowerment (section)

==Legal==
Legal empowerment happens when marginalised people or groups use the [[legal mobilisation]] i.e., law, legal systems and justice mechanisms to improve or transform their social, political or economic situations. Legal empowerment approaches are interested in understanding how they can use the [[law]] to advance interests and priorities of the marginalised.<ref name=odi>{{cite web|title=The politics of legal empowerment: legal mobilisation strategies and implications for development|url=http://www.odi.org/publications/8485-legal-empowerment-mobilisation|website=Odi.org|access-date=24 November 2014}}</ref>

According to 'Open society foundations' (an NGO)  "Legal empowerment is about [[Capacity building|strengthening the capacity]] of all people to exercise their [[rights]], either as individuals or as members of a community. Legal empowerment is about grass root justice, about ensuring that [[law]] is not confined to books or courtrooms, but rather is available and meaningful to ordinary people.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/legal-empowerment|title=What Is Legal Empowerment?|access-date=29 December 2014}}</ref>

Lorenzo Cotula in his book ' ''Legal Empowerment for Local Resource Control'' ' outlines the fact that [[Law|legal tools]] for securing local resource rights are enshrined in legal system, does not necessarily mean that local resource users are in position to use them and benefit from them. The [[legal system|state legal system]] is constrained by a range of different factors – from lack of resources to cultural issues. Among these factors economic, geographic, linguistic and other constraints on access to courts, ''lack of [[legal awareness]] as well as [[legal aid|legal assistance]] '' tend to be recurrent problems.<ref name=Cotula>{{cite book|last1=Cotula|first1=Lorenzo|title=Legal Empowerment for Local Resource Control: Securing Local Resource Rights Within Foreign Investment Projects in Africa|date=1 Jan 2007|publisher=IIED, 2007|isbn=9781843696674|page=48|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-72KOAj92UgC&q=legal%20awareness&pg=PR2|access-date=24 November 2014}}</ref>

In many context, marginalised groups do not trust the legal system owing to the widespread manipulation that it has historically been subjected to by the more powerful. 'To what extent one knows the [[law]], and make it work for themselves with 'para legal tools',  is legal empowerment; assisted utilizing innovative approaches like [[legal literacy]] and awareness training, broadcasting [[legal information]], conducting participatory [[legal discourse]]s, supporting local resource user in negotiating with other agencies and stake holders and to strategies combining use of [[Legal proceeding|legal processes]] with [[advocacy]] along with media engagement, and socio [[legal mobilisation]].<ref name=Cotula />

Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, with governments participating in the process of marginalization. [[Equal opportunity]] laws which actively oppose such marginalization, are supposed to allow empowerment to occur. These laws made it illegal to restrict access to schools and public places based on race. They can also be seen as a symptom of minorities' and [[women's empowerment]] through lobbying.