OVASOFT technology company & NGO, South Africa

Project location: Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Website: https://ovasoft.wordpress.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OVATalk

Project description:

This project is split in two parts, the technology company and the NGO. Reason being is that we wanted a more effective way to resolve the problem of access to justice and we think that this is the best approach to take.
We sat down and decided what is the best approach to solve this problem, what is the most effective and practical way to deal with these issues, and we decided that creating a software and an NGO that will engage all the citizens of age.
We see ourselves as advocates of access to justice, Access to justice needs to be taken seriously, for example when one is examining the court systems in south Africa, poor people seem to be already at an disadvantage because when one looks at the Oscar pistorius case and its outcome and take for example a lower class person from the township, then one would see the blatant skewed justice system in south Africa.

Goal and purpose of the project:

OVA-Soft is a result of a need to address challenges within the Legal industry particularly in the Courts, and police stations with the issue of missing dockets. We see ourselves as solution providers and a partner to the Department of Justice; we are focused in ensuring that the department will benefit from our innovative service & products.
We will seek to work in a collaborative and proactive way to deliver against requirements based on leading practices. We deliver the effective tasks as planned in the overall project plan also considering the constraints.
the OVA-Agent campaign under our Non-Governmental Organization which we are creating where we partner with the law school and law clinics in order to raise awareness about this problem of "Access to Justice” because it is not only a problem in South Africa but it is also a problem that is faced throughout the rest of Africa and Asia etc.
Our OVA campaign will help speed up the process in courts which results in delayed justice, because with the help of the law schools and law clinics hence we also solve the problem of overburdened courts in the societies.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

Access to justice should be prioritized highly because the trust relationship between the citizens and the state is gone.
The point is justice in South Africa is not for all social groups in South Africa. I can go as far to say justice is for Sale. So it can be said it is available to the highest bidder. Then it can be said the justice system is taking advantage of the poor. Because when it is immediately about money, the morals get compromised. Because you have a service, the other party has the money, they just go with the highest bidder.
Access to justice needs to be taken seriously, for example when one is examining the court systems in south Africa, I will not go deep into details, poor people seem to be already at an disadvantage because when one looks at the Oscar pistorius case and its outcome and take for example a lower class person from the township, then one would see the blatant skewed justice system in south Africa.
The average township person cannot articulate English properly, the court environment is intimidating to the average township person and you find that these people speak through an interpreter in the court, now there are situations whereby lawyers take simply out of obligations for money instead compassion and sympathy towards clients and this does not normally end well.
In my point of view there is so much we can offer as an organization in the region of nelson Mandela bay municipality, and we aim to this consistently
We should be considered for the application because we are going to change people’s lives. Poor citizens do not even know anything about the title deeds for example and people’s houses are being stolen and sold right under their noses by corrupt officials.

Use of prize money:

I believe that the NGO should try to minimise its minimum costs as much as possible however at this stage we need the funding for travelling costs, print t-shirts, equipment for the NGO such AS THE STATIONERY SUCH AS THE laptops, printing machines, fax etc., we will eventually need office space so we will ,need to cove office maintenance expenses.

because we are all students, we are not working currently so we are in need of the money, however once the software company is up and running, the money we make in it will be used to fund the ngo eventually. But however the staff costs at this stage won’t be high since law students will help out via internships, and volunteer ship, this way we are trying to minimise the costs, but we will need a receptionists someone who will be at the office full time.

The cash will also cover things such as the training workshop, running an awareness campaign involve certain expenses