De Amicitia Casa Jasmine Learning from Rural Youth Work Camps – JOB SHADOWING WITH DE AMICITIA CitizensLab members spent a week job shadowing our APERO partner De Amicitia in Spain, exploring how international youth work camps can contribute to local development, environmental action and intercultural learning. APERO Job Shadowing in Spain In March 2026, two CitizensLab members spent a week job shadowing our APERO partner De Amicitia in Spain, exploring how international youth work camps can contribute to local development, environmental action and intercultural learning. The visit gave us the opportunity to look behind the scenes of De Amicitia’s work: meeting the organisation’s president and local team, exchanging directly with participants in an international work camp, visiting different project sites and learning about collaborations with local practitioners. We also took part in De Amicitia’s long-running beekeeping programme, one of its early environmental initiatives, combining practical experience with learning about how environmental activities can become part of an organisation’s long-term local presence. Another experience was the “Walk and Meditate” workshop, facilitated by an external practitioner for the work-camp participants. It opened up reflection on the value of bringing people and practices from different fields into youth programmes, and on creating space not only for doing and volunteering, but also for personal experience and reflection. CLab visit to De Amicitia Bees keeping APERO Job Shadowing in Spain What did we bring back? One of our strongest learnings concerned the human and relational dimension of work camps. Beyond completing activities, these temporary communities can create meaningful intercultural encounters, shared responsibility and opportunities for young people to learn through living and working together. Talking directly with participants helped us understand both their motivations for joining and what they were taking away from the experience. The visit also raised important questions about the role of the camp leader: How much responsibility can a volunteer realistically hold? What preparation and support do they need? And how can organisations create responsible group leadership when finding people willing to take on this demanding role without financial compensation is increasingly difficult? Rather than finding a single answer, the job shadowing gave us a concrete organisational challenge to continue exploring within CitizensLab and the wider APERO partnership. We came back to Berlin with inspiration around horizontal team management, investment in local cultural and environmental initiatives, collaboration with practitioners from different fields, and the importance of putting human exchange at the centre of international youth work. About De Amicitia and Casa Jazmin Our host, De Amicitia, has more than two decades of experience in international volunteering, youth work and rural community development in Spain. A central part of its approach is to connect international volunteers with concrete environmental, cultural and social initiatives rooted in local communities, building long-term relationships with municipalities and local actors. Casa Jazmin is one of the spaces from which this work is hosted: a rural base where volunteers and international groups can live, learn and contribute together. More than simply accommodation, the space supports the workcamp model by bringing communal living, shared responsibility, practical work and intercultural exchange into the learning experience. For us, it offered a concrete example of how a physical place can become an infrastructure for relationships between international participants, an organisation and its surrounding rural community.