📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
"L’Enfance de l'Art", founded in 1997, is an association which aims at helping parents in their education role. The organisation aims to gather people willing to bring to their children a creative learning environment where they can find the joy in learning and experience the richness of childhood rather than early specialisation or academic hot-housing. Parents and professionals work together in the structures created by the organisation: leisure workshops, nurseries, schools, kindergarten. To do so, the association follows the principles of Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy.
Altogether, those activities gather a total of 155 children. The nursery, the kindergarten and the primary school, which are all recognized by the authorities, are located in a former boarding school which was abandoned in 2004. This building in now in a process of renovation which the volunteers will take part in.
💼 What the programme involves
The main task will therefore be to contribute in the renovation of the old boarding school which L’Enfance de l’Art has been occupying since 2011.
Material and techniques of construction are eco-friendly.
The aim is to create a welcoming and well-equipped place with lavatories, kitchen, dorm, game room, …
Volunteers will work from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 12am and from 2 to 4pm. Depending on the needs, they will work in teams on different tasks:
• Eco-renovation: coating with a straw-soil mix, dismounting of building, materials sorting, painting
• Taking care of the surroundings
• Furniture building in the carpentry workshop
• Cooking for the team
🏠 Accommodation on site
On the workcamp place, in other buildings to be restored or in a tent (possibility to choose).
• two showers and several toilets
• a room to cook and eat
• two dorms
Comfort will be closed to what you can find in a scout' camp.
Please bring a sleeping bag and a torch (to move inside the buildings).
The meals (light at lunch: sandwiches, salads, soup... and hot meal for dinner) will be prepared by a member of the organisation with the help of two volunteers. A focus will be put on a good management of the collective cooking in order to have quality meals with as few waste as possible.
📍 About the location
The building of “l’Ecole de la Providence” is located in Templeuve which is a small village close to the French border (2 km) and 20 km from Lille and 10 km from Tournai. There is a market and small shops in the village. A bus line makes the connection with Tournai (every hour during the day). The countryside is flat, which makes it easy to bike (a few bikes will be available). Tournai is a touristic place for old stones, history and museums lovers. Its cathedral is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
⚠️ Requirements
This workcamp is open to anyone interested in meeting and sharing with others.
Smartphone use will be limited, based on rules which will be decided collectively on the first day.
Please bring clothes you’re not afraid to dirty, good working shoes and remember that even during summer weather is often variable.