It’s January and with it a new season begins. At SCI France we are living it with a lot of cold, but if possible with more excitement than cold. We are going to give you a small taste of the exciting events that make us feel a little bit more protected from the freezing weather.

This week our new volunteer Firas arrives from Tunisia. Firas is a volunteer of Volunteering without Borders, our Tunisian partner, and he comes to Lille to work with us for 10 months. We hope that the change of temperatures will not cloud the beauty of these northern lands. Once we have Firas with us, we will head for the first pre-departure training of the year, yay!

This time at our headquarters, we will be conducting this training from 5-9 February for those lucky ones starting their mobility. The star destinations include: Sri Lanka, Morocco or Albania. In this training we will deal with very important topics for the good development of volunteering such as non-violent communication, voluntourism or interculturality. Our volunteers are accommodated and fed during this week and for this purpose, a helping hand is always useful. On this occasion it is Hélène, a veteran volunteer who did her mobility with SCI France and who
has offered herself as a helper to support us (thank you very much!).

While all these nice events are taking place, in the offices we continue preparing the work camp season. Summer is approaching and with it the workcamps: 10- to 30-day projects involving a small group of volunteers of around 10 people (no more than two people of the same nationality on a project, the aim is to encourage intercultural encounters).

For now (while we keep looking for partners) we present you the following workcamps:
• Fort de Jouy: it is about the renovation and restoration of one exceptional heritage building: the 19th century military fortress of Jouy-sous-les-Côtes. Situated in the east of France, its aim was to protect France against potential German attacks in the XIXth century.
• Langenberg: “Association Langenberg” is an eco-friendly community that places ecological values and humanity at the center. The association and its castle are set in a natural environment and the goal is to help to renovate the castle in order to make it ecofriendly and energy-efficient. If any of these workcamps catches your attention, you know: contact us; and if not, take a look at the rest of the missions we offer: https://workcamps.sci.ngo/icamps/

The SCI France team wish you all a happy new year, the best possible start to it and see you at the
next one!