Volunteer with us
Pierre Cérésole, SCI founder.
Volunteering
Acting out of self-initiative, without seeking material reward and for the benefit of civil society, as a method and a statement for social change, whilst never competing with paid labour nor seeking to contribute to strike-breaking.
Have a look at all our opportunities and start your volunteering journey with SCI!
What type of projects can you join with us?
Our projects aim to break down barriers between people and develop intercultural understanding. In that way they contribute to building a culture of peace among people. The projects place a strong emphasis on intercultural learning and include elements of peace education. There are many different projects to choose from and they are open to everyone, without any distinction of sex, race, religion, ability or ideology. We strive to make our project accessible to anyone by keeping participation fees low and with special programmes for young people with fewer opportunities.
Every year hundreds of voluntary projects are organised in different fields and with different types of voluntary work, ranging from environmental to social, or cultural projects.
Short-term Volunteering
SCI organises short term voluntary projects, commonly known within SCI as ‘Volunteer Camp’. These projects are organised in cooperation with SCI branches and partner organisations, who create and organise these projects together with local communities. A short term voluntary project is a unique form of volunteering, bringing together people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds to live and work together with local communities for a period of two to three weeks.
Long-Term Volunteering
SCI’s Long Term Volunteering (LTV) programme provides volunteers with the opportunity to join a project from 1 to 12 months in another country and community. Long Term Volunteering is more than just work. It is the experience of living abroad and learning from different cultures and people, while getting deeply involved with a concrete project that is for the benefit of the local community. It is a commitment that enables sustained work for peace, both on a concrete level for SCI branches and partner organisations, but also and especially on a personal level for the volunteer and the members of the community.
Local and online volunteering
You can contribute to your local SCI organisation with their events, projects, trainings, and you can participate in a volunteer camp as camp coordinator, helping other volunteers establish themselves in the camp, facilitating study parts or meetings, acting as intermediator between the local partners and the volunteers and contributing to creating a happy and collaborative atmosphere.
You can also volunteer online with various tasks such as translation, design, data collection and analysis, online trainings, working groups and more.
What is volunteering for us
SCI has been organising volunteering for peace projects for a century. This experience is something that we can be proud of, however there is still work to be done. Working for peace is a continuous process, and while everyone desires to live in a peaceful society, living and building peace requires, amongst others, empathy, skills and proactivity. Volunteering builds all these skills and ethics, giving tools to people looking to contribute to creating stronger societies.
There is a clear connection between volunteering and peaceful societies. Crossborder volunteering promotes not only civic engagement but also fosters better intercultural understanding. It strengthens respect for the environment, society and ourselves, thereby creating more empowerment and cooperation.
SCI believes that individuals should play an active role in society or in other words be active citizens, because their contribution is needed to achieve social justice and a culture of peace. We want to empower our volunteers to walk in the shoes of others and change perspectives.
Our voluntary projects contribute to this by inspiring participants and providing life changing experiences in order for them to adapt the values of active citizenship and volunteerism in everyday life. In our voluntary projects, the volunteers witness that another world is possible and local communities gain experiences outside their walls.
To reach this goal, we wish to maximise the impact of our projects by focusing on both the quality and the quantity of the volunteer camps and long-term voluntary projects. Activities, including volunteer camps, should be meaningful, with a focus on intercultural dialogue and non-violent communication using different non-formal education methods. The projects should follow SCI’s values of social justice, sustainability and inclusion.
