Ten things to know about Justice Without Borders

1. 100% of our work involve the same chronic issue. All of the cases we work on involve the migrant workers’ inability to access justice. When a migrant worker returns to their home country, they often lose the ability to make claims for rightful compensation. We seek to change that.
2. We believe in leveraging culture to build on our community. 100% of our programmatic staff are nationals. We seek to ensure our appointed leaders thoroughly understand and appreciate local cultures so they can effectively tap into local communities and effect the change needed to improve access to justice.
3. We thrive on nurturing new leaders. We place utmost importance in the growth of our team members, and therefore consistently work towards nurturing new leaders. Justine Lam, our head of Hong Kong, and Eva Maria Putri Salsabila, our head of Indonesia, both started with us as interns and have risen through the ranks during their time. 
4. We embrace cultural diversity. We believe that a culturally diverse workplace empowers people to develop their talents and skills. There are currently eight different nationalities (The U.S., Australia, Britain, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, India, Japan, Singapore) amongst us, and we believe that the broad range of ideas and expertise, stemming from different backgrounds, enables us to learn from a more diverse collection of colleagues.
5. More than half of our workforce are volunteers. Our work is currently powered by a mixture of full-time staff and volunteers. We have 11 field positions and are supported by 24 part-time volunteers all around the world. Our volunteers’ skillset and expertise range widely, right from law practice to business operations, marketing, graphic design, public relations and social media. We welcome volunteers from all walks of life to bring their skills to bear at JWB.
6. Our people stay with us even after they leave us. Our current pro bono partners include interns who went on to become lawyers. Their experience with us makes them effective legal advocates for our clients. 
7. Our working partners range from individuals to corporations. Our clients enjoy the support of a wide range of partners, including solo legal practices, large international firms and front-line organisations in different countries. The combination of all three packs the most punch, as it lets us work with leading lawyers locally. They understand local regulations, laws and the inner workings of different government bodies, and can break down cultural barriers. 
8. Our funders range from all vocations. JWB is a not-for-profit organisation and we rely on funding from our generous donors. We receive monthly donations from individuals, funding from law firms, major foundations and from the United Nations. Any legal assistance from law firms and their pro bono teams also helps boost our ability to advocate for migrant workers’ access to justice. In 2020, we brought in over US $3 million in pro bono assistance.
9. We believe capacity development is half the battle. Capacity development for front line organisations dealing with migrant worker issues is vital to effecting change. We share our lessons learnt with frontline staff and work closely with them to grow, train, support and champion their teams so they can manage and lead effectively within the complex systems and issues. 
10. Access to justice and sustainability. Social issues like the lack of access to justice are often decades old and will take decades to resolve. In our time, we will work tirelessly to advance the mission, but our ultimate hope is that our work sustainable and will live beyond that which we ourselves do.