After completing VCE at Toorak College, Mount Martha resident Mayrose Rolley completed a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Global Studies after her desire to help others prompted her to become a lawyer. Now, at 24, she speaks to Kate Sears about her move to Uganda in order to spend a year volunteering her skills to protect vulnerable women and children from violence and oppression.
We hear you’ve moved to Uganda to work with the International Justice Mission. How did the decision to take on this come about?
Working with IJM was never on my radar. It wasn’t until my fourth year at law school that I had an inkling of where I wanted to take this career. I was studying International Criminal Law in Rome and it was there I discovered crimes against humanity, particularly the practice of forced marriage. I came back from that study trip empowered and impassioned to educate the people around me about the occurrence of forced marriage. It was during a conversation with a friend who had worked with survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia that the idea of working with IJM was mentioned. I had never heard of them before, but I went home that day, did a bit of research and filled out the application for legal field intern.
You’ve joined the fight to give women and children a voice when their community silences them. We imagine a day in your life is challenging, rewarding and emotional.
Day-to-day life and work in Gulu ranges. There are days where we receive a positive judgement in court. Those are the days for celebration, days where we can see our hard work paying off, and days where we can see tangible change coming to the Gulu community. Then there are days where we receive new cases of intimate partner violence. We read the reports of the beatings, the burnings, the mental and emotional abuse. Or days when a magistrate tells our client that your husband beats you because he loves you. It makes us feel like we’re right back at the beginning. But we know that the work we are doing is helping our clients, even though we may not be seeing immediate change in the broader sense. We are standing up against injustice and changing the lives of the vulnerable people in this community. Through our work, our clients now know they have people who will fight for them, protect them and see them restored to a place of dignity and safety.
You stated on your website that you’ve always been passionate about helping others. Do you recall where this stemmed from?
I think it’s always been something that I’ve been conscious of. However, there was a pivotal moment when I was 17 working with disadvantaged youth that things became clear. This was reiterated during my pro bono work with Refugee Legal, where I saw the injustice and violation of basic human rights. I knew then this was what I was meant to do, to be a voice for the voiceless, to stand alongside the forgotten and overlooked.
Your year at IJM is completely voluntary, so how can we help your mission?
If people would like to help financially, readers can visit my website at www.mayroserolley.com and follow the link to donate. All money donated goes towards ensuring I can stay in Gulu and continue working with IJM. Nothing is provided for, so we are required to pay our way through the year — rent, utilities, groceries, transport, work permits, visas and travel costs. You can also find my blog there as well, where I post updates about my time in Gulu, lessons I’ve learned, things I’ve experienced and accounts of my time with IJM.