Holiday camp for asylum-seeking children (Haute-Nendaz VS)

CODE: CH-SCI 2.1

Description: The "asylum" sector of the Office for Social Services of the Canton of Valais hosts a summer camp for children of asylum-seeking families. There are two groups of kids coming over two weeks (one group each week). The first kids group is aged 5 to 8 years old and the second group 9 to 12 years old. One group is composed of 60-70 kids. The volunteers will join the full duration of the summer camp and already arrive on Saturday. There are around 25 volunteers in total consisting of local volunteers and SCI volunteers at the summer camp. The purpose of the summer camp is to give relaxation, games and discovery for children of asylum-seeking families. They have been faced with difficult situations in their past and live in an unstable situation since their arrival in Switzerland.

Type of Work: You will manage every day the same group of children, together with other local and international SCI volunteers. You'll participate in the animation, the implementation of activities for the children and the practical life of the camp (daily life activities as waking kids up; assist them in getting dressed, taking a shower; going to sleep; clean up, etc.). The programme is fully prepared when the camp starts and the task of the volunteers is to hold the planned activities together with other local volunteers, as well as play with the kids. There is one evening in the second week where you can suggest your own activity to the kids. Every volunteer will also be asked to sleep 1 night in the hallway in front of the kids bedrooms to support or to handle possible problems at night.

Study Theme: Volunteers will be encouraged to think about how they can make a contribution to peaceful living together of people from all origins in their home town. In case you are interested in the migration system of Switzerland, you are welcome to ask the workcamp hosting partner – he will be happy to give you further information.

Accommodation: You will be accommodated in a group accomodation in a mountain village. You will have mattresses, blankets and bed sheets provided - be prepared to share a room with other volunteers. Toilets and showers will also be shared. There is wifi. It is possible to wash your clothes in the accommodation building, there is a washing machine. Food will be prepared by cooks.

Language: You have to be fluent in French for the communication with the kids, the local volunteers and the workcamp hosting partner. If you additionally have German or Russian skills, that’s ideal. The children come from different countries, but the camp language and the local language are French. If French isn't your mother tongue, the workcamp hosting partner will call you to check your language skills.

Requirements: Flexibility, Responsibility and Motivation to take care of the kids during the day, evening and some over-night watch. You'll also need to be creative with ideas for activities and games for the children, especially for the evening with free activity in the second week.

Please send us a motivation letter in French. Possibly you will need a (special) excerpt from your criminal records TBC.

Notes: The children will stay at the camp the whole week, they don’t go back home at night; so you will also spend the evenings with them. Be aware that the working hours exceed the standard in SCI workcamps – you will mainly be working from morning till evening. During two weeks all volunteers, the workcamp hosting partner and children live together as a community, so you will not spend much time alone. SCI volunteers will be free on Saturday afternoon in the middle of the workcamp and have one day off during one of the two weeks where they will do a trip in the region.

Please note that the food often contains meat, but there is always also a vegetarian option.