Building Better Communities, One Grant at a Time
SPOTLIGHT ON GOOD WORKS
The Bella Coola Legal Advocacy Program
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he Bella Coola Legal Advocacy Program (“BCLAP”) was founded in the Fall of 2008 by Anne Fletcher of the S.H.E.D. Society of Bella Coola. The BCLAP provides Legal Advocacy services to the midCoast and Caribou communities of Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Klemtu, Wuikinuxv, and Anahim Lake.
Ms. Fletcher provides free and confidential legal advocacy services… Ms. Fletcher provides free and confidential legal advocacy services including information and referrals, summary advice and support, and full representation in all legal matters including housing (on and off Reserve); income/social assistance; debt; police accountability; human
Mid-Coast map
rights; disability; Indigenous legal issues; elder issues;, child protection; family, criminal, and legal aid; Wills/estates (on and off Reserve); EI, employment (on and off Reserve); and pensions. The BCLAP began with funding from the Law Foundation of BC for the provision of services to Bella Coola (Nuxalk Nation) and Anahim Lake (Ulkatcho Nation) and is now a continuing program of the LFBC, recognizing the hugely disproportionate needs of those remote and primarily Indigenous communities. There are no other agencies, historically or currently, providing any legal services in this region of British Columbia.
Notary Foundation-funded BCLAP assistant legal advocate Elaine Hunt (L) and Public Interest law student Madeleine Northcote deplaning from Wilderness Seaplanes’ Goose on their return home to Bella Coola, arriving from Bella Bella
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
BC Notaries Association
he BCLAP promotes the rule T of law by increasing understanding of the law and how the law ultimately seeks justice. For mid-Coast Indigenous communities, understanding and appreciating how the law can benefit individuals is severely impeded by physical isolation, Volume 28 Number 2 Summer 2019
