Universitat de València started a free assistance and assessment service for the members of the university community (students, technicians, management and administration personnel, professors, research staff and research trainees). The services reaches the members’ first degree relatives too.

This service is provided by the Legal Clinice of Social Justice of the Law Faculty and is lead by professors Pilar Fernández and Andrés Gascón, who usually provides free service to NGO and resourceless and possible social exclusion victims. The Clinic has stepped up against the catastrophe to broaden its tasks.

More than 180 volunteers form a team of students, professors and law professionals from Spain. It has been divided in 45 teams to focus on different areas in which the affected might be in need of assistance. 17 work groups provide support regarding compensation and administrative matters, 10 work groups deal with assurance and economic matters, 12 work groups deal with civil and family matters, 4 work groups deal with job matters, 1 work group deals with criminal matters and 1 work group is reserved for other matters.

After its first week of activity, the service has accepted 71 requests, 5 of which have already been dealt with. They expect to receive more of them since Universitat de València’s university community has more than 11,000 members affected by the DANA. More specifically, 9,300 students and 1,800 workers. They amount nearly the 20% of the total community.

Universitat de València has started other initiatives in front of the disaster to deal with the different areas affected by the DANA. They are divided between some that aid the Legal Clinic of Social Justice with the university community and others aims to support society and institutions with immediate and cross-disciplinary action.

Among the initiatives, there’s lending classrooms for schools and highschools, financial aid for UV students affected, psychological assistance, the Salvemos las Fotos program, artwork restoration, restoration of libraries, volunteering in the zero zone and more. All actions can be consulted in the Universitat de València website www.uv.es.