Because I like it so much, I try to do a volunteer project abroad every year. In the summer of 2022 I helped in a holiday camp for children of asylum seekers in Switzerland.
There were five SCI volunteers, and a lot of local Swiss volunteers. However, most of the local, Swiss volunteers had arrived in Switzerland as asylum seekers. What was special, is that some of them had participated in this holiday camp as a child and now took the opportunity to do something back for the project. Also, many volunteers (and many children) came from Ukraine this year. All in all, there was a very international atmosphere!
There were three weeks and volunteers could stay two weeks or the total of three weeks. Each week there were different children, from different age groups: the first week they were from 5 to 7 years old, the second week they were from 8 to 10 years old and the third week they were from 11 to 13 years old.
The project was very well organised. Each week the children arrived on Monday morning and stayed until Saturday morning. The children were divided into groups of on average six children for which around three volunteers were responsible. Activities that were organised, include: inventing a group name and song, horse riding, archery, sports like football and basketball, a bingo night, a Ukrainian or an African night (depending on the week), dancing, singing, theatre and on Friday evening a special dinner and a party for the children. As always, working with the children was very rewarding!
The place where we were situated, was in the mountains with a very nice view of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. Coming from a country without any mountains, I enjoyed being in this surroundings a lot!

-David