📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
This year, we want to do some landscaping in Vaunières, a hamlet like no other!
In the heart of the Hautes Alpes, the association Les Villages des Jeunes has been managing, animating, and renovating the Vaunières welcome center since 1964! It is an old mountain hamlet, which has become a steppingstone place for local youth and adults, but also a place for French and international volunteers. Vaunières is a vacation spot for families, tourists, and groups, who come to enjoy the calm of the mountains and the dynamics of the place.
The workcamps that we organize at Vaunières with volunteers from all over the world allow us to reinforce the cultural diversity of our action and to make this site a place open to the world, where people of all ages and all social and cultural backgrounds agree to meet by working together and sharing a collective life.
💼 What the programme involves
This summer's work will focus on the development of a landscape and the maintenance and restoration of a hiking trail.
The mound is located in the center of the hamlet, a grassy area that is now hindered by stonework structures that are no longer useful. To reduce the impact of construction on nature, the association wishes to offer more natural spaces to the people it welcomes in the hamlet. You will then participate in the creation of a relaxing space in the middle of the village life for all the people who stay here. The structures are being demolished before the summer in order to be able to offer a work site for both landscaping and furniture.
You will also be working on a hiking trail to allow you to discover the natural areas of the Hautes-Alpes, its fauna and flora by rehabilitating the trail (clearing, signposting, etc.) and providing educational support (information panels) along the way. You will thus be able to allow everyone to enjoy this hike again. A specialized technical supervisor will be at your side to provide you with advice and techniques. You will work approximately 30 hours per week in the morning.
🏠 Accommodation on site
You will be in individual tents, which we provide, as well as mattresses, on the camping areas of the hamlet of Vaunières, with access to showers, toilets, and the kitchen. There is no WIFI but you will meet people from all over the world ! You will take turns to cook, so that we can taste several specialties ! Here, we are careful about what we eat. In order to reduce our environmental impact, we try to eat a maximum of local products and we eat meat twice a week. The daily life is organized together: organization of the menus (vegetarian, vegan and other specific diets are possible), shopping, activities, etc. Bring a mattress, a good comforter (the nights can be cold) and a pillow. To be adapted to your needs.
📍 About the location
Le Hameau de Vaunières, 6km from the village St Julien en Beauchêne (05140), consomis 23km away from the city of Veynes (05400). Once or twice a week, we organize with our vehicles some grocery shopping outings.
Leisure activities: We will be in an exceptional location to discover the joys of hiking among the mountains, its rivers, its lakes, the farmers markets, and festive events organized in the surrounding villages (depending on programming). As a group, we will decide the activities and outings that we want to set up (subject to distance). Once a week, the welcome center generally organises a musical evening with homemade wood fired pizzas.