Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico
Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico promotes access to justice and the defense of fundamental rights through legal education, the development of civic capacities, and legal support for communities of low and moderate resources.
Ayuda Leag’s main work areas are coalition development, legal education, capacity development, community legal work, and social impact advocacy. It uses technology and public policy analysis to maximize its impact.
The passage of Hurricane Maria moved Ayuda Legal to implement the first legal support initiative after the disaster in Puerto Rico: Legal Help Hurricane Maria. The success of this program inspired much of the legal work after disasters in Puerto Rico. It demonstrated that the community legal education and support model serves to accompany, empower, and provoke changes in public policies.
Ayuda Legal’s current projects address issues of communities’ access to justice, the right to housing, and just recovery. Among its strategies are the deployment of community brigades in the wake of disasters to ensure that people have access to the resources to which they are entitled.
