📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
For the 19th year in a row, the town of Alençon will host a group of international volunteers to work on the design of a medieval garden. The city of Alençon is the administrative center of the Orne county and a dynamic city of 30 000 inhabitants where you will enjoy the various local organisations but also of the beautiful countryside nearby, full of beauties to discover. A first workcamp, which took place in 2014, started this project by cleaning and designing the place. Local institutions try to raise awareness among youth about local heritage but also to the building of a city by all and for all. By hosting a workcamp, the municipality really wants to create awareness to the local population through the organization of several environmental actions and some meetings and exchanges between all the cultures, with the inhabitants. You will be a part of the local celebrations in July: parade and fireworks for the 14th of July, “Echapées belles” (sweet escape) festival and “Folklore of the world” festival, discovering of the local heritage.
💼 What the programme involves
You will be supervised by two leaders. You will take part in the restoration of the wall surrounding the medieval garden, and will learn ancient technics of masonry: clear off undergrowth, masonry work, repair the joints of the bricks by using traditional techniques (e.g. lime mortar).
At the end of the workcamp, you will organize an “open doors day”, an event to promote your work among the inhabitants and local partners.
🏠 Accommodation on site
In collective tents on the camp-site, boys and girls separated; sanitary facilities in a building close to the sleeping place; cooking and eating under a big tent outside. If you have a tent, please bring it. The meals will be taken in a room in the mill with the volunteers of the organization. The group will be sharing the cleaning chores and preparing meals together. The budget will be allocated to the group leader and you will participate in the preparation of dishes with good products from the market and local producers.
📍 About the location
In the south of Normandy region, in the Orne County.
⚠️ Requirements
As the workcamp takes place in an urban area, for practical and eco-friendly reasons, you will have to use bikes for local transportation. You will need to be able to cycle by consequence. You will work on small scaffolding; you should, therefore, be to be able to work at height. Please bring gardening gloves, good shoes and working clothes. As the nights can be quite cold, remember also to bring warm clothes. Don’t forget to bring a sleeping mat, a warm sleeping bag (and a tent if you own one!). Foreigners belonging to the European Union must bring with them a personal EHIC (European Health Insurance Card), and everybody must, in any case, bring their insurance certificate. If health issues happen on the project, volunteers will have to pay for it, and then be reimbursed once back in their home country.