Why work camp?

FSL India believes in the work camp principles, that people in any community should be given equal opportunities to express their solidarity with others in a practical and basic level. We believe that practical work can be a good way to break the ice, and is a way young people can discover or develop talents and skills that are within themselves.

FSL India work camps offer valuable opportunities for the volunteers to learn values of life from different parts of the world through cooperative operations and services. Therefore, we are open to an unlimited extent of fields rather than restricting to only perfect conditions.

FSL India aims to increase social, cultural, educational, and environmental actions in the rural and urban areas of India through national and international volunteering by means of work camps.

Work camps promote tolerance, understanding, overcoming prejudices and stereotypes. The work camps are created to support and encourage local initiatives that will continue even after work camps are held.

Our mission is to expand horizons by organizing volunteer camps throughout India with help of national and international volunteer organizations, institutes and colleges, by bringing people of different cultures, languages and regions together.

Volunteering at work camps represent a unique experience for the youth. Besides gaining new skills of communication, practical knowledge and work experience, they become aware of the importance of being socially active. This way the volunteer strengthens the consciousness of society as a whole.

History of work camps

International voluntary service began in its modern form in 1920. The idea was the result of meeting of a group of people at a house in the Netherlands following First World War (1914-1918). They decided that they had to do something active to try to deal with both sides, the dreadful effects of the war, and to find a way to overcome the causes of further conflict. One of the persons there, Pierre Ceresole invited volunteers from former enemy countries to rebuild a village near Verdun in France which had been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting, including a 10 month battle in 1916 which claimed over one million lives

Further pilot projects established both the theory and practice of workcamps, which began to develop new themes as time passed, intervening after disasters in the 1920s and intervening in social projects and projects in developing countries in the 1930s. These early projects resulted in the creation of the first international work camp movement, Service Civil International.

After World War II new organizations sprang up to help reconstruct Europe, both physically and in terms of bringing former enemy populations safely together. Today international voluntary service organisations are present all over the world