PILnet has partnered with Minority Rights Group Europe (MRGE) on the MARIO project to build a supportive environment for grassroots CSOs engaged in representing minorities in accordance with EU values across Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Latvia, Czech, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia.
The project provides financial support, and builds the organizational capacity of grassroots CSOs representing minority groups through training, legal assistance, and promotion of EU values.
PILnet’s role in this project is to build the legal capacity of the selected grantees through specialized training, legal resources (such as the MARIO Manual), mapping and addressing of the legal needs of grantees, and facilitate legal support through our vast network of pro bono lawyers.
To view our legal resource “Introduction to EU Values, Institutions and Mechanisms” developed with the precious pro bono support of lawyers at Latham & Watkins and White & Case, click here.
For more information, check out the MARIO Webpage and the database of 2023 and 2024 grantees.
PILnet is currently implementing a regional legal needs assessment across the already onboarded 2023 grantees. The legal needs assessment is designed for PILnet to better understand the legal needs of organizations working for minority rights in Europe. This will help us to understand your legal needs to approach the correct types of pro bono lawyers that would be able to assist minority rights NGOs.
If you are a minority rights organization from Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia or Bulgaria, and want to share your legal needs in your local language, email us for a survey link at [email protected].
We are circulating actual legal requests from Mario grantees as part of our Global Clearinghouse list. To check out legal requests coming from minority rights NGOs, please check out the below up-to-date catalog:
We are undertaking a comprehensive mapping exercise to identify available pro bono service providers. If you are a lawyer interested in supporting this project, we invite you to participate by expressing your interest and providing relevant details by filling this form.
We will also be organizing groups of regional and international experts to assist minority CSOs in analyzing available information, setting up different scenarios, and designing tailor-made responses and solutions. If you are an expert in minority rights and are interested in being part of this group of experts, please contact us at [email protected].
The project provides financial support and builds the organizational capacity of grassroots CSOs representing minority groups through training and legal assistance and promotion of EU values.
For further details and to apply, please visit the MRGE page.
You can view our list of grantees from 2023 here.
MARIO is funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (2021-2027) of the European Union (ref: 101091387)
