06/11/2026

UIC marks ten years of solidarity with a new edition of UIC Social Day

For the tenth year running, the University organised its flagship volunteering event, giving members of the university community the opportunity to take part in eight volunteering activities held simultaneously across both campuses in collaboration with a range of social organisations.

On Wednesday 4 November, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) held the tenth edition of UIC Social Day, the University’s leading volunteering event, designed to bring volunteering and social engagement closer to the entire university community, particularly students. Once again, both campuses were filled with volunteers and representatives from social organisations taking part in a variety of volunteering opportunities.

The eight activities included preparing breakfasts for people experiencing homelessness, writing Christmas cards to older people, creating Advent calendars with people with disabilities, sharing musical activities and games with people with intellectual disabilities, making bracelets out of sweets for mothers in vulnerable situations, learning about the experiences of deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and discovering educational support initiatives for children and young people.

Student volunteers and participants from the Aura and Valldejuli foundations pose together with balloons, a certificate of participation and a cake marking ten years of UIC Social Day

The activities were organised in collaboration with social organisations including the Centre d'Acollida ASSÍS, Cáritas Barcelona, Cáritas Terrassa, Aste BCN, Fundació Valldejuli, AIS Ayuda a la Infancia sin Recursos, Fundació Aura, Maternity, Casa Guadalupe, T-Oigo and Terral, among others.

“The fact that this event has been held for ten years shows UIC’s strong commitment to volunteering,” said Daniel Bonsfills, head of the University’s Solidarity area. Bonsfills emphasised that volunteering is part of UIC’s identity and aims to ensure that students gain part of their education “through volunteering, helping those most in need and serving others”.

Student volunteers fill paper bags with bananas and pastries to prepare breakfasts

Among the participants in UIC Social Day was Guillermo Cardona, who takes part in programmes run by Aura Foundation, an organisation that supports people with intellectual disabilities in their education and access to employment. Guillermo highlighted the positive relationships he built with students and the friendships he made during the event and said he was delighted to be able to take part in the initiative.

A student and several women share a table preparing sweets on red card

Now in its tenth edition, UIC Social Day has established itself as one of the volunteering initiatives promoted by the University’s Student Services to raise awareness of the importance of volunteering across the university community and encourage participation in the social initiatives organised throughout the academic year. During the 2025–2026 academic year, UIC had 2,240 volunteers, of whom 1,888 took part in a range of volunteering initiatives, 197 participated in curricular volunteering and 155 in extracurricular volunteering.