ASOCIACIÓN FORMADORAS CAPACITADAS

Legal support for an inclusive training project in Spain

Some pro bono requests find their match quickly. Others need a longer route. A small Spanish association came to Pro Publico with a set of legal questions. The help it needed came from our wider European network rather than from Brussels.

A small association with an ambitious mission

Asociación Formadoras Capacitadas was registered in Spain in October 2020. Its work opens up training paths that have long been closed to people with intellectual disabilities. It runs two lines of work.

The first trains people with intellectual disabilities to become trainers themselves. Once qualified, they deliver courses in pairs with a trainer without a disability. Expertise and authority sit on both sides of the room.

The second, Soy una Joyita (“I’m a little gem”), teaches artisanal jewellery-making with a clear goal: employment in the jewellery sector. In 2024 the project was two years old. It was run with professional jewellers and organisations from the industry, and the association was putting most of its energy into it.

The association is small. It has fewer than 30 members, a handful of direct participants each year and a few part-time staff. Like many grassroots organisations, it had legal questions about how it operates and no in-house capacity to answer them.

From request to referral

The association applied for pro bono support through Pro Publico’s collaboration with Bridge for Billions, a world-wide accelerator for entrepreneurs. Our first step, as with every request, was to understand the organisation and its needs. We asked how it was legally constituted, what support it needed and when. We also asked whether advice in English would work.

The answer to that last question shaped everything that followed. The association needed the advice in Spanish, on Spanish law, so that it could act on it directly.

Pro Publico circulated the request to the professionals in our network, but no suitable match came forward. Rather than let the request lapse, we asked the association for permission to share it with Fundación Pro Bono España, our Spanish partner. The association agreed and sent us its statutes so the case could be passed on.

How the match came together

Fundación Pro Bono España circulates pro bono opportunities to its members in a regular bulletin, with a pause over the summer. The association’s request went into the first bulletin and their member firms then had a week to apply.

A Spanish law firm took the case on. An introductory meeting followed soon after and the firm then held several meetings afterwards with the association and looked closely at its situation. It delivered a written report answering the questions the association had raised.

What it meant for the association

The association said the collaboration went going very well. It described the firm’s report as thorough and valuable. It also thanked both organisations for making the connection, which it said had helped it a great deal. They now had expert guidance on its open legal questions, in its own language. 

Why networks matter

This case shows a quieter part of a clearing house’s work. Not every request can be matched locally, and the best answer is sometimes to know who else is better placed to help.

Pro Publico is based in Brussels, but many of the civil society organisations that reach us work under national law and in national languages. Partnerships with national pro bono clearing houses such as Fundación Pro Bono España mean a request does not end where our own network does. Through those partnerships, a small association in Spain can get the same quality of pro bono support as a large international NGO.

The case also shows that patience pays off. Waiting for the bulletin cycle meant the association’s support started after the summer instead of before it. In exchange, it got a firm committed to its questions and advice it could actually use.

 

Pro Publico connects civil society organisations across Europe with law firms providing pro bono legal support. To learn more about this project or to explore a partnership, get in touch.

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Discover more about how Pro Publico works, or read other governance and compliance stories, such as our match for the School for Moral Ambition.