SNJ voluntary service - explained

I kind of always wanted to take a gap year, to do something completely different.

About one year ago, I started looking for NGO’s who had partners doing development work in Asia. There are many ways to do so, and I’m definitely not fond of all. I knew that half a year was the minimum in order for your work, to have real impact, so I wanted to find something that I stood behind completely.

In specific, I was looking for projects that empowered bottom-up, if possible with link to environment topics.

Little did I know that 99% of the search results on the web, are just volunteerism traps. Before people told me where I can find the “good” organisations, I was on countless websites offering a volunteering experience, that in reality, is just business and not development work at all. Basically, you’re paying them, and in return you get a good conscience.

From our school we were three, Catherine, Cathy (I’ll mention them a lot later on) and I, who were looking for a way to REALLY work in project that means something to the local community, live humbly like them and see how Asia looks like through the eyes of a non-tourist.

Around christmas, by then I had written about 50 emails to which I didn’t get an answer, I then heard about the voluntary service for cooperation (service volontaire de coopération short SVC in french) introduced by the local youth service (SNJ). Catherine and I went to one of their information sessions (dates found on http://www.volontaires.lu), where we were surprised about how forthcoming Luxembourg as a country is in terms of promoting voluntary work and thus providing administrative and financial aid.

Till now,I heard of no other youth organisation that is just slightly as generous with administrative and financial aid as the SNJ, furthermore they have achieved that in terms of insurance (for example) we have immense advantages in contrast to most of our european neighbours. Voluntary service can be local, european or international (whereby the international has a minimum length of 6 months), as far as I know, in all cases one receives a contract covering basic social security and working conditions, all work hours are recognised by the pension fund and all volunteers receive an official certificate to prove their civil engagement.

All this considered, I would definitely say, that for everyone who thought about getting engaged as a volunteer. The path through SNJ is a really good option.

After calling Mme Bauer, responsible for all things SVC, I met with Fabien from the cercle the coopération ( http://cercle.lu/citoyennete-mondiale/ecm/ ), who told me the general procedure which is most of the times as following:

You start by looking for a luxembourgish NGO that supports projects that you feel are corresponding to how you wanted to help, and in which you think you can really be of use to others. The main questions here are: Can the partner speak enough english that you can work as efficiently as you would want to? Do they have the space and means to host a volunteer? Are they big enough to spare some time to fill in reports to the luxembourgish NGO?

Some of the NGO’s I really loved in terms of their approach and mode of action, were a bit to small for me to make “sense” there. But in the end, I found 4-5 projects in different NGO’s, who I’ve then written to, with some, I booked appointments to discuss what possibilities they are.

Generally, I found SVC is veryyyy flexible in a way that no one actually knows their function or job on the project before leaving. They say, a nurse, an engineer and a journalist could all go work on the same project, and they would always find something useful to do. Apparently one of the thirst things you’ll learn is to make yourself useful.

If all goes well, your favorite projects will be able to host you. In my case, I was lucky, my first choice: A project focussing on providing training in innovative, sustainable agriculture to young rural farmers, were able to take me on.

From then on, things are most often settled in a couple of mails. From what I’ve heard, many of the volunteers were surprised about how hilariously easy-going the partner organisations were ( they called it Nepali-style), for example when I send my letter and resumé to the NGO in Nepal, they just wrote back something like:”We would be happy to welcome you in the team. See you later, namasté”.

At that point I had been looking for a project for 3 months, and finally the whole thing was sealed in 1 sentence.

Once you’ve received the ok from then partner, you’ll sign a contract by which you become an official volunteer, it is signed by the luxembourgish NGO that sends you to their respective partner NGO where you will then work, and the SNJ.

By signing you commit to working a 7h Day, almost three days off a month, and all other obligations you’d probably also have in Luxembourg. Also, you agree to attending to trainings in advance, and to write a report about your work once you’ve returned.

All of this is understandable regarding that the SNJ kind of “invests” in you, in the hope that you will help spreading open-mindedness, and the desire to help, in your environment.

To anyone who currently thinks about doing voluntary work, you can ask me anything, or just call Mme Bauer. Both of us will also be on the Foire the l’étudiant on thursday afternoon.

IN FRIENDSHIP,

Teddy Smile