Main facts

The Association des Compagnons Bâtisseurs, aka CBB, is a non-profit, non-political organization recognized and financially supported as Youth Organization by the Brussels-Wallonia Federation since 1978. It is member of the ALLIANCE of European Voluntary Service Organizations since 1997. In Belgium, CBB is member of the federation of the pluralist and independent youth organizations.

As Youth Organisation, CBB is managed by young volunteers. 7 Board members out of 9 and 81% of the members of the general assembly are bellow 35 years old.

Values, principles and objectives

CBB recognizes itself in a value of active pluralism. The participation in our projects always leave the participants free to make their own choice and decision concerning their personal, cultural, political or philosophical orientation and involvements so far that these orientation and involvements respect the personal situation and the dignity of any other members of the society and respect the core-values of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

All the actions of the organization are based on the principles of non-formal education (in the French meaning of Popular Education). Our projects aim to support the development of active citizens, able of sense of responsibility, criticism and solidarity.  They offer a space for interaction and expression of people from diverse origins and abilities, with the objectives to encourage their awareness on societal challenges (from local to global level), to raise new links of solidarity between them and between their communities, and to support their full participation in the society.

In that sense, any project or activity in CBB encourages:

• The empowerment of free, autonomous and responsible individuals. Our projects encourage processes of social and cultural emancipation, which means that they invite their participants to reflect on the place they occupy in the society and on the role they can and they want to assume in it.
• The meetings beyond the differences. Our projects encourage the awareness to the richness of human diversity and the creation of new social links.
• The practices of active citizenship and the promotion of volunteering: by taking part in our projects, people should experiment new ways of participation and to be encouraged to take responsibility in their communities.
• The informal and non-formal learning processes: the participation in our projects must permit the acquirement and development of competences such as self-confidence, autonomy, intercultural competences, leading skills, manual, social or linguistics abilities…

Our programs and activities

CBB mainly develops its action with 5 permanent programs of activities:

• The international workcamps (short term volunteering projects in international group)
• The week-end workcamps (volunteering projects for local groups during the week-end)
• The mid and long term volunteer projects, which include European Voluntary Services.
• The leisure time activities (of one evening, one day, one week-end, one week…) for mixed groups of volunteers and

• The leaders trainings (for volunteer projects and also for kids camps)

Our public and human resources

Our activities are developed thanks to a network of 425 members (members list 2013), 180 international volunteers during

the summer and a team of 9 employees.

We are a Youth Organization and most of our public is aged between 16 and 25 years, even if there is not upper age limit

to integrate our groups of volunteers.

Our public is diverse. Around 30 nationalities are yearly represented in our projects.

We also implement strategies to facilitate the participation of people from disadvantaged economic and social background as well as of people in situation of disability. A clear result of this strategy is that, among our 425 members, more than 70

people are in situation of disability.

Our level of action 

CBB is based in a semi-rural area. The unique office of the organization is located in Marche-en-Famenne, a 17 000

inhabitants town at 110 km from Brussels, the capital from Belgium.

We organize our projects in the territory of the Brussels-Wallonia-Federation of Belgium, which means that our projects

take place in the French speaking part of the country.

In the frame of our international projects, we maintain partnerships with more than 70 organizations and 49 countries from

Africa, Asia, America and Europe.

JAVVA IS...
JAVVA stands for « Jeunes Actifs dans le Volontariat et les Voyages Alternatifs » or in other words « Young People Active

in Volunteering and Alternative Travels » and was founded as a non-profit organization in 2000. Since 2003, JAVVA has

been recognized as a youth organization by the French-speaking government of Belgium.
OUR MISSION
We aim to promote an ideal of tolerance, solidarity and peace between young people from around the world and to

encourage their active participation and mobility.JAVVA has no political or ideological affiliation.
OUR APPROACH
International camps and volunteering projects enable inter-cultural encounters as well as the discovery of others and

therefore, in our opinion, represent a useful tool in the construction of peace. They contribute towards a fairer world with

more solidarity and respect for differences. Even if our projects cannot be considered as humanitarian aid or emergency

relief, they offer participation in another culture, and teach teamwork through participation in a development project in the

heart of a local community.
OUR MAIN ACTIVITIES
International Workcamps

European Voluntary Service (EVS)
Medium or Long term Volunteering
JAVVA@School Trainings
Workcamps
This year, our workcamps will last 2-3 weeks and will take place from April to October. The number of international

volunteers in the camp will vary from 8 to 14. If possible, we try to avoid having more than 2 participants of the same

nationality in the camp. Usually English is the camp language, but there are some projects where notions of French are

necessary (see workcamps’ descriptions).
Conditions for participation
Volunteers should be over 18 year old and there is no maximum age limit. There are no special skills required from

volunteers. Participants should be motivated to do voluntary work, be ready to meet the realities of local life and

demonstrate flexibility, tolerance and openness to new experiences. There is no extra fee required to participate in our

workcamps.