Creating awareness: the experience of the Servicio Universitario del Trabajo in Santiago de Compostela|Creando conciencia: la experiencia del Servicio Universitario del Trabajo en Santiago de Compostela*

The Servicio Universitario del Trabajo (SUT) was an organization created from a voluntary activity in the wake of the work experience of three students in Rodalquilar in 1950. Within a few years, SUT had extended its structures to the main university cities: Madrid, Seville, Oviedo and Santiago de Compostela. Regional expansion also led to the growth of its activities, bringing it into contact with the population closest to the respective study centres. The first initiative was “trabajo dominical” (Sunday Work), in which students helped build housing in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Once there, needs multiplied, and they also offered help with literacy, health and in the home. This research focuses specifically on Santiago de Compostela, one of the most active groups in this period, allowing us to analyse SUT’s operation at local level, in close contact with the students, its ideology, activities and influence on the cities where it operated. It is a case study that also sheds light on the regional history of Galicia, in what was at the time its only university city.