Volunteering

Volunteering tasks

Volunteers help around the hostel for a few hours a week while staying within the religious community. There are many different tasks that the volunteers undertake, including:

Becoming a volunteer

Volunteers can be anyone between the ages of 18 and 35 and of any gender. Volunteers usually stay at the hostel from anywhere between three weeks and a few months. They help in serving breakfast, undertaking housekeeping duties, working at the bar and socialise the guests in the lounge (roughly equating to 30 hours work a week). With free meals and accommodation, they share lunch and dinner with the community and also participate in their prayer life. The volunteers live in the same building but in a small studio apartment situated on the ground floor. 

Living in the heart of Paris, the volunteers benefit from all that Adveniat offers. To take advantage of this volunteering experience, a good level of French is required.

NiColas
Paloma

Testimonies

Paloma

Palomas experience, from Mexico

I arrived at a point where I was not satisfied with the fact of not knowing more people during my student stay. So I tried to “keep busy”, go elsewhere, make acquaintances with other people. So I set out to look for all this.

So I found an ad to work as a volunteer in the youth hostel  “Adveniat “, I applied, I got an answer a few days later, and an interview with Father Nicholas and voila, I was accepted and I was on my way to go to the Center of Paris, in a very good reception, a good explanation of the tasks, and a visit of the place. After a few weeks of making breakfast and sometimes cleaning, I am trained to welcome clients during other activities within the hostel and I fulfill this function, by perfecting my level of English. At the end, I even offered a little concert

I learned a lot from people from all over the world, with other volunteers from different countries and cultures in Paris itself (the hostel is right in the centre of Paris, almost next to the Arc de Triomphe) ensured socialization and activity, Exchanges…A great experience, which taught me many things, dating, makes see that the world does not turn everywhere in the same way!

NiColas

Nicolas experience, from Columbia

My name is Nicolás Velásquez Díaz and I am a Colombian student. I went to France to do a semester at Sciences Po Bordeaux. I decided to volunteer three months from September to November at the Auberge Adveniat with the assumptionist community. So, during volunteering, I had the opportunity to meet people from all over, which helped me to broaden my vision of the world and improve my level of the French language. In addition, working with the community, I made new friends who contributed to my personal and professional growth. Finally, volunteering helped me to get closer to God, thanks to religious work and daily sharing with the assumptionist community. In short, volunteering was an experience I will never forget, as it has prompted me personally and professionally to be a better person every day.