Youth Ministry Volunteer Programs in Western Europe

I’m a huge fan of camping and I’ve done this for a long time, but it was my first time in Europe and I think it was an amazing and affordable experience! I had a very good time and got to learn many things and meet some amazing people. Can’t wait to go back!

Coming back to camp as a returnee is such a cool thing, cause you already know how everything works but it still surprises you in a good way. You get to meet new people as well as your friends from the previous years, and you feel more confident in being a role model for the kids. After spending more than three months at camp (in total), I can say that I consider camp people my summer family - you get to create very strong and meaningful bonds. In addition, it's a great way to visit new places around Europe, as you can travel around with friends during your week off. Don't hesitate, just go to camp and you won't regret it. See you there next year!

My summer at camp started off as a big adventure. An adventure to a mysterious place I’d never been to before and where I knew absolutely nobody there. After surviving training week and running some activities by myself, my confidence grew massively. My imagination was free to run wild with the kids’ and I quickly felt like part of a huge camp family. There were some days I had to spring out of bed after having had very little sleep and still show up for the campers. This was hard but it was impossible to not smile in the company of the campers. They were hilariously silly and never failed to make me laugh. I was sincerely heartbroken when I had to leave. In just a few weeks I’d made so many crazy memories and found friends for life.

I went alone from Ireland feeling anxious and over my head but these feelings quickly went away! I had the time of my life and I have no regrets as camp was the best thing I’ve ever done! While it was overwhelming at times I can say I’ve made friends for life :)

Writing these lines thorugh the perspective of time, I've realized that taking that plane alone to Germany was the best decision I could have ever done. I was so overwhelmed by my academic life that I needed something completely different to know how feeling alive looks like. The way Camp can open your eyes and help you in your personal growth is indescriptible. I stayed there for a total of 2 months, in 3 different placements, originally not knowing anyone but in the end feeling like they were part of my family. You get to experience very strong emotions, as many good as bad, and overall you learn more about yourself thanks to all the challenges you need to go through. It's like a world in which you are in a constant interaction with people from everywhere, and together you all create an atomsphere of community that breaks all the walls that different cultures or languages could originally build. Not everything is marvellous, as you also get exhausted of so much people around and so little time for yourself, but it is definatedly worth it. You get to take the lead and to solve problems with the resources you've got, which is such a good skill to cultivate. But you also need to know your limits and give yourself some breaks because if not there must a time in which you explode. That's why form time to time you get a night off, and a week off, that you really need to take advantage of (mostly for resting). The coolest part of all this is that you get to live the experience with fellow teamers of your age (mostly around our 20s), and that makes it much easier becuase you always have a helping hand and you end up with lifelong friendships that are a treasure. Don't think it twice, just join Camp! P.S. The campfires at the end of the day are a blast.

As a returnee, I had just as much this year as I had last year. Camp Europe does an amazing job ensuring that campers AND teamers enjoy their time at camp. I look forward to the 2023 season! If you're on the fence about joining Camp Europe: Do it! Get out of your comfort zone!

Camp Adventure is a wild summer living in tents, surrounded by people 24/7 and learning to push your comfort zones. It is a lot more work then I was expecting, you 'work' from 7.30am to 11pm at night having only an hour break a day and an evening off every 2 weeks. However, the work is being surrounded by children from all over Europe, playing games and running outdoor activities with them. You really get very little time to yourself, but after embracing living in such a loving community, it's such a joy to spend every minute with your camp family. You really have to go into the summer prepared to sacrifice a lot

Well it was my first time volunteering for such a thing, I enjoyed it so much, found a lot of friendly guides to help me taking first steps becoming a teamer and I knew a lot of friends which I may call friends for life from all around the world. Highly recommend it for everyone and I am pretty sure s/he will enjoy the journey starting from the application phase till he start volunteering.

Camp Adventure is part of my personal growth as an adult, which is why after being a camper for 2 years, I made the decision to become a Counselor and stay for 6 weeks this time around. Obviously, time is worth a lot and you may feel some FOMO when you know that other friends are spending their time on a holiday destination doing whatever they want. But in all honesty, I do not know a single counselor that did not enjoy their time at Camp. The environment surrounding this camp is extremely lively and you will quickly feel included into this little community. The traditions and the way this camp works, whether it's through the program, staff games, running gags, chants and collective challenges is what make it so special and one of the reasons why both staff members and children are returning. As a counselor, you will collect multiple experiences, face different challenges, be obliged that you step out of your comfort zone, but I personally can only recommend people to apply because your growth as a result is absolutely worth it. Your daily life never gets boring, because you can choose different tasks every day, whether it's running morning sports, free sports, arts and crafts, helping out in the kitchen, organising an evening activity and so on. But the most important part of your job is working together with your co-teamers, and of course making sure your group of around 8 children are having a great summer. The most interesting part is trying to find a balance between being their friend and supervisor throughout the 2 weeks. You'll get the chance to develop multiple skills, whether you're giving them first aid, sharing meals with them, taking care of homesickness, creating a group dynamic, bringing them to bed and entertaining them. Both the interactions with children as with your peers are really enriching, because of everyone's different ages, nationalities and interests. and both younger and older persons have life lessons to share. You can also get transferred from one campsite to another, whether it's a language camp in the UK or a sports camp in Germany. I had the chance to obtain placements in 3 different locations, which is a great opportunity to adapt to a new environment, kids from different nationalities, social backgrounds and meet other counselors. I'm already looking forward to next summer to see my friends again, relive good moments, take even more responsibilities and contribute to a great summer for children. I owe this organisation so much and I know it's gonna become an even bigger part of my life than it already is.

My Experience in Camp was a life changing Experience for me, and probably to everyone else. The Integration and the Mixture between the different Cultures whether from the Teams or from the Campers was for me one the best Experiences i’ve ever had so far and i’ll recommend it to anyone who is looking for an amazing, adventurous time with one of the best most friendly, motivated group of people i’ve ever seen

The following is a very sincere text I hope some can relate to. I used to be a camp kid when I was 15, I later became a CIT and eventually a Teamer. Camp has always been a safe place to me where I can get to know myself and other people. A little oasis far away from home where you can stop time for a while. This year I studied abroad and I felt like I was losing myself. People with identity crises tend to think they will connect with their inner-self if they visit an unknown place and explore. I believe that may be a way to do it, but I kindly disagree with the choice. I just wanted to remember what was to feel myself, before Covid, before lockdown, before a lot of changes going around, so I decided to go back to the only place in the world that will always feel like “a constant”; I framed Camp as an “independent variable” in the experiment of life. I thought this would be my last year at camp and I wanted to say goodbye properly, to close a chapter and become the adult they warned me I should become. I got to Camp in the middle of the summer. Same smell, same place, same tents, same forest. New teamers who do not know you and think you are new but you are actually old-school. New objective: get integrated into the team, find your place. Training week. New young and marvelous people who do not know yet what is coming. Feels like we are getting to know each other very fast. Time flies. Music, games, we are big kids in the playground, relaxed, happy and joyful. We know now the rules of the games. Beginners in juniors. Everyday feels more and more as if no other reality exists apart from camp. Has it been 1 week or 1 year? I was wondering if, you brush your teeth before or after breakfast? Nevermind, I’m physically tired but my kids are the best. It took two days until we got to communicate in Gerglish but it was worth it. Mimics help a lot though. Kids go very creative when you listen to them. The Tea Club is just success and A*, who plays chess in the morning, is trying to teach B* some Portugeish. This morning B* told me “bom Dia como está? meu nome é B*”, afterwards I just remember A* yelling “Do NoT RePLY iN SpaNiShhhh! you YOU ARE GOING TO MIX HIS HEAD WITH SPANISHHH”. I love 10 years old people. Hike. When they ask you to go on a hike, you go. That is camp spirit. We were around 30 seniors from 12 to 16 years old plus Teamers. Something beautiful happened. In the beginning, the older boys were in the front, with the map and the compass. “Guiding” the group but very frustrated because the younger kids were “sloooooow”. For 1 day us teamers practice the popular so-cold leissez-faire, because our task was to keep them safe but do not intervene. The next day, after lunch we asked them why they would not ask each other for feedback. I highlighted that some of them were carrying too much weight and being frustrated because the group path was so fast. After a few hours we saw the campers exchanging bags, and making sure the younger ones took part in the decision-making process. It was beautiful. I’m a senior now! There is this kid in my bubble whose friends have already left camp. He is alone now. In the bubble we decided to play an assassins game to create inter-tents-synergies. He had to kill one of the girls in my tent so I told him to get closer to them. At the beach, the girls were sitting around my boy and interviewed him. They asked him who he liked and he answered “her” [the one he had to kill]. A master move. Spoiler alert, she ended up dead and he eventually felt for her. That week I also had the opportunity to watch something amazing: an old-style teamer in action organizing an actual trial for a camper who was late for dinner. The jury was so in. HE IS GUILTY YOUR HONOR! The punishment? Dancing at the Talent Show Let it Go with the brush and becoming the table fairy for a few days. I call that rule of law. I cried every time I had to say goodbye to the kids. At camp I learnt that nothing will ever go exactly as you planned. At camp I learnt to tolerate wasps and the worth of doing an effort. Thanks to camp I could learn to reconnect with myself and got to know a lot of beautiful people from all around the world (special greetings to the German people and Egyptian diaspora. I hope to see you soon). We all share a great summer to remember. Camp used to be a little oasis but eventually felt like home. I thought this would be my last year at camp and that I was getting too old but I do not want that anymore.

This is my second summer volunteering at Camp Adventure in Germany and I will keep coming back as often as possible. I had originally planned to do 4 weeks this year but ended up staying for over two months. I've met so many amazing people from all over the world, learned many invaluable skills, and discovered an entire world of possibilities linked to outdoor education. Working there has been overwhelming and challenging at times but there's nothing like the feeling of community and personal growth. Everyone is there to help and support you while you learn to take on the responsibility of taking care of kids and leading activities outside. Would recommend it to anyone wanting to meet incredible people, work with kids and be outside all day.

I wasn't sure when I got there how am gonna socialize with people, what am gonna do and everything was vague for me but from the first day till the end of my placement I felt like I was home even better, I met awesome people and kids who made the experience the best, going through a lot of different activities and situations that made this summer unique and I hope to be able to meet them again next summer!

Overall, I really enjoyed my stay in camp during the 2022 season. There were a lot of amazing moments, together with the fellow teamers and the kids. It was really great to experience being a teamer and taking care of the kids and organizing and running activities. So, I definitely really enjoyed that part. Thinking of camp there are some things which could be improved in my opinion. At first, when I arrived at my first placement there was no schedule at all and almost every day was planned day by day, once this eventually improved after 2 weeks and full schedules for 2 weeks were made, the quality of the activities improved a lot as the teamers could now plan their activities ahead and could switch among each other. On top of that, I have experienced multiple times that some fellow teamers felt left out as not-so-nice tasks as night owls and cats were consistently disproportionately assigned to certain people while others were completely left out. Also, sometimes the logistics were lacking a bit: food would run out (systematically), items not be supplied sufficiently or schedules for excursions would not be viable from the onset. This was almost always the case when these plans were hastily drawn up, whereas almost all the more carefully planned activities/tasks/schedules would work out great. Therefore, it really felt to me that trying to add planning (and a bit of structure (e.g. 30-45min teamer meetings and not daily 2 - 3 hour long teamer meetings) make a great improvement to the smaller camps. But apart from that, I really feel like camp pushed me out of my comfort zone in a positive way. I got to know a bunch of great people, came to love running activities for the kids and coming up with new ideas to keep them engaged. Therefore, it was a really nice time overall.

I spent the summer working as a teamer for Camp Adventure in different camps across Germany. The job as a teamer was extremely fun and working with kids was so rewarding seeing how much they enjoyed camp as well made it even better, especially when you saw them grow as people in their short time there. I also made friends that will last a lifetime in the people I worked with who made the experience 1000 times better - just always such good vibes, I will forever be in love with camp :))

Camp Europe was a great place to get my mind out of the chaos and issues in the world. Working in a place where you only see 500 kids and play soccer, volleyball, swim, dance, and do everything together with them is pure joy. And of course, the amazing camp fires with team members every night after a tiring day is what makes Camp Europe Unique.

Hey, I absolutely enjoyed those 4 weeks, in Walsrode and in Regen. The staff there as a trainee was amazing and your co-teamers were some high quality people. The programs with the kids are fun to run and you have some really enjoyable time when the day with the kids is over. I made some great friends, renew with some I had seen years ago and discovers lots of different people. As a summary (it's really similar with the title) I think I stayed too few weeks. And would have really enjoyed some more!

This year was my first time at “camp adventure” and I already know that I want to return next year. I met incredible people from many parts of the world that I can call friends. This experience also challenged me to use my English like never before and to dare to speak German. Being with the children was also wonderful, since you enjoyed such fun moments with them while you continued to learn and left a positive impact on their summer. In short, this experience is unique and has become a very important moment in my life.

That was my first time ever not only as a camp counselor but also as a camper so I had so many worries before going and I didn’t really know what to expect until I arrived there and had the best week ever during the training week. This experience was a life changing one for me because I had to do a ton of activities that brought me out of my comfort zone and made me face my fears and overcome them. Reflecting on the 6 weeks I spent at camp, I learnt about my strengths and capabilities and knew that I was able to do so much more than I expected.

Camp was amazing, one of the best experiences I've had. The training and the weeks I've placed in both Walsrode and Regen were great. Amazing company that both taught and supported me on how to be around kids. Also great job to the directors! However, in Regen there was a sickness where kids were puking for weeks and not much was being done. Either way I remember this summer as a very special one