Vocalise - Education Department, Gray's Inn

Winner - Best New Student Pro Bono Activity

“The programme works because it utilizes the enthusiasm and skills of trainee barristers to help those less fortunate, whilst seeking to give the inmates the tools to help them re-establish links with society.”

Vocalise was started in September 2010 by two BPTC students, Alex Just and Florence Iveson, as a pro-bono initiative supported by the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn.

Bar Course students are trained as mentors in debate who then go on to teach inmates in prisons across London. The classes then culminate in a final debate, held between the most capable prisoners and an external team.

In addition to its work in prisons, Vocalise also teaches in St. Alban’s, a local primary school near to Gray’s Inn. The programme organises a weekly debating club with the aim of teaching children debating and introducing them to the legal world.

To find out more about the project, please visit the Vocalise website (http://www.vocalise.org.uk/).