Volunteering helps you gain first working experience – if you are volunteering in a foreign country like Switzerland you show empathy and adaptability to future employers. Besides the many new experiences you make during your volunteering you can contribute to your professional career. In this section we provide you with some volunteering possibilities like wwoofing, work and travel and EVS.
Tip: Ifye.ch sets you up for a volunteering experience in Switzerland. Blogs by backpackers may also inspire you while figuring out the best volunteer service.

Living Sustainability with Wwoofing
World-wide opportunities on organic farms (wwoof) offers you board and lodging for four to five hours work a day on a ecological farm (counted are workdays without the weekend). You pay a small fee to the wwoofing organisation in the country you want to be wwoofing in – in your case Switzerland. In return you get a list with wwoofing projects, short descriptions and a time period when volunteers are accepted. It is up to you to contact the people and defined your workload, tasks and period of your stay. Make sure to settle all these points in order to make the best of this experience for expectations on both sides are going to be met.

Volunteer work on a Swiss farm
Agriviva is a non-profit association with the aim to provide young people with the opportunity to do short-term work on a farm in Switzerland. For an internship/placement with Agriviva in Switzerland one must be over 16 and under 25 years old, have the citizenship of a EU-/EFTA-Member state and be able to lead a basic conversation in German or French or Italian (depending on the region/area where the chosen farm is located). There's no specific language diploma requested - mandatory and important is the ability having a conversation and a good understanding. In addition to free board and lodging the participants are paid a daily pocket money by the farmer, scaled according to their age (between 12.00 and 20.00 Swiss francs per day). Voluntary farm work has an educational value - an experience of nature is brought closer to the participant.

Work and Travel
Work and Travel is a different way to spend valuable time in Switzerland. It helps you save money and to prolongue your stay while you get to know life in Switzerland from a less touristy point of view. Workaway and HelpX are international platforms of farms, private households, ranches, lodges and hostels, which invite you to stay with them (all organisations are non profit). Generally you work four hours per day, be aware that this varies from project to project. In return for your help you get board and lodging for free. All information you’ll receive on the homepages of the two platforms. Be aware that in order to get in touch with the hosts you need to log in and set up a profile. At HelpX you pay 20 Euro for two years, at Workaway you pay 23 to 30 Euro for a year.

On both platforms user can leave their comment after their volunteering experience at a Workaway resp. HelpX place. These comments and ratings help you find the one place that suits you and your wishes best.