Author: BRAVO Coordinator

In this way, the volunteers will be actively involved in the development of our associative project and our activities. They will have the opportunity, if they wish to, to develop a personal project in relation to the collective project. Through the activities volunteers will improve how to work in a team, how to communicate and handle an intercultural context.

At the same time, we wish to host and organize specific projects with groups of local young people as well as with young people in difficulty and/or training groups. The volunteers are taking part in these projects as well as in the setting up of actions to promote international mobility within the area (meetings, forums, sharing their experiences with groups of young people, encountering the association‘s institutional partners …).

During summer, Sem&Vol organizes international volunteer workcamps and youth exchanges in the area. They usually take place over a three-week period in surrounding rural communities. There are different kinds of projects: renovation or restoration of local heritage sites (fountains, old public washing places…), the promotion of cultural heritage (recovery of historical memory and cultural identity through reports, exhibitions, …), the protection of the environment (cleaning a riverbank…), the organisation of arts and/or cultural activities, festivals… In order to lead international volunteer summer projects, the volunteers hosted by our association will be encouraged to take part in internal training courses.

In addition, volunteers will be helping to transform a disused school into a collective living space. Cadouin’s inhabitants were deeply affected by the closing of the school at the end of 2015 and most of them are looking forward to the transformation of these premises.

We encourage volunteers to take on responsibility at different levels and we foster the learning of organisational and logistics skills; we also offer the possibility of exploring creative and artistic activities which can be used in workshops where people can express themselves verbally, corporally and/or artistically.

Thus, it is important for everyone to identify the needs and to assess the interests as well as the objectives to be reached. In this way, we seek to empower and guide the volunteers towards a certain amount of autonomy and active citizenship.

The monthly timetable that we have established will give you the opportunity to gain technical knowledge and skills in various areas:

• Daily workcamp (minor masonry work, woodwork, painting, environmental work)
• Organisation and participation in local intercultural activities such as interventions in schools, creative workshops for specific audiences (you can choose: children, teenagers, elderly people, …), local events as well as language classes once a week ;
• Building networks between local and our associations, to guarantee better communication and a greater coherence in territorial actions ;
• Promotion of the association and volunteering (presentations, creation of communication media for Sem&Vol, etc.)

In addition, once a week, a group team meeting will take place to work together on activity planning, budget management and to evaluate the week. These moments of sharing also serve to defuse certain conflicts that are not uncommon in an intercultural setting. We propose a democratic and collective approach to decision-making in order to develop the positioning and critical thinking necessary for constructive cohabitation.

Many of these activities will take place in the volunteers‘ accommodation premises or in the host village, but also in neighbouring villages and throughout the Dordogne department.