LUNARIA WORKCAMPS 2025: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED 839 LIVES
385 volunteers arrived in Italy from around the world. 454 departed with us to the world. 93% would recommend it to friends. 72% want to go again immediately. Here’s what really happened.
To join our programme in Italy, get in contact with your local organization: https://www.alliance-network.eu/membership/full-members/
“Unforgettable. When I arrived, I never would have thought I’d find such a united group despite cultural differences. I think it was the best experience of my life so far.”
When you read a sentence like this, it could be an exception. But when hundreds of young people respond to our post-experience questionnaires – three out of four want to go again, nine out of ten recommend it to friends – you realize it’s not luck. It’s something that works.
In 2025: 454 young Italians to the world, 385 international volunteers in our camps. Spanish, French, German, Ukrainian, Russian, Moroccan, Armenian, Japanese, Korean. In total: 839 people. Not an all-time record – that remains 2019 – but we’ve come very close again.
It’s not just about numbers. It’s the continuation of a vision that is one hundred and five years old: international volunteering as a tool for peace, reconciliation, and a concrete alternative to the logic of war.
TWO DIRECTIONS, ONE MISSION
Almost everyone recommends it to friends. And indeed, 56.5% of new volunteers arrive through word of mouth. The virtuous circle feeds itself – very important for us who cannot (and don’t want to!) spend money on aggressive advertising and marketing.
In 2025, perfect gender parity among those who departed: 277 girls, 277 boys. For the first time. We’re dismantling stereotypes, a small but significant step toward deconstructing models of masculinity based on competition and individualism.
And then there are the 385 international volunteers welcomed in Italy in our 35 projects. “The group was amazing, we became a family,” writes a German who participated in a camp in Carsoli. “The camp leaders were fantastic,” says a French volunteer. “I loved the environmental practices – it wasn’t just talk, we really lived it,” says a Spanish participant.
The motivations are identical on both sides: to know and work with people from all over the world, to feel socially useful, to learn by doing. Not tourism, not saving money, but building relationships that cross borders.
BUILDING PEACE, ONE CAMP AT A TIME
In 1920, in Verdun, on the border between France and Germany, Swiss engineer Pierre Cérésole brought together young French and German people to rebuild a destroyed village together. Not charity, but a radical political act: cooperation can replace conflict. One hundred and five years later, we continue that mission. In two directions.
In an era of new wars, walls, nationalist narratives, patriarchal rhetoric that would have young people competitive, “tough” and isolated, our workcamps are spaces of concrete resistance. Living together, working together, discovering that those who are different from us are not threats but discoveries and hope for the future.
Because in those relationships there is something profoundly political.
BEYOND THE TOXIC NARRATIVE
“Meeting people from so far away helped me erase prejudices,” writes a volunteer after a camp in Estonia. “In Roccantica people opened their houses, the mayor thanked us. We felt welcome,” says someone who arrived in Italy.
This generation grows up with a narrative that wants them scared, selfish, alone. Screens tell stories of division, competition, threats. The dominant discourse – patriarchal, bellicose, nationalist – proposes models based on violence, domination and closure.
Workcamps offer the opposite. Not proclamations, but concrete gestures: cooking together, building together, discovering that vulnerability is not weakness, that mutual care is strength.
“We used the word ‘familia’,” says a volunteer. That word returns often, in Italian and English. It’s what happens when you build relationships based on solidarity, not competition.
France (97 volunteers), Germany (79), Spain (53) remain the preferred destinations for those departing, but the surprise is Estonia: 57 participants, +30%. And 5.5% chose camps outside Europe: Nepal, Tanzania, India, Mexico, Japan. Before the pandemic it was 15%. We’re looking far again. About a third of those departing are minors, on projects designed for teenagers.
WHEN THE GROUP BECOMES “FAMIGLIA”
The first day is always the same. You arrive with your backpack, you don’t know anyone, you wonder: “What am I doing here?”. Then something happens. And at the end you cry when you have to say goodbye.
80% rate the relationship in the group as very positive. You put together people from different countries, different languages, for two weeks of physical work. It could go terribly wrong. Instead it works.
Why? Workcamps create conditions different from everyday life. No rigid hierarchy, no competition, no obligation to appear perfect. There’s shared work, shared fatigue, the discovery that we all need each other.
“All 12 of us became friends, going beyond language barriers,” writes a girl from France. “The group was so cohesive. I still keep in touch,” echoes a German from Italy.
Of course, it’s not always easy. But problems are exceptions. The rule is that the group works and becomes a laboratory of active citizenship.
WORK THAT MAKES SENSE
In Italy: stages for festivals, environmental recovery, support for villages at risk of depopulation. “It was amazing to see the impact of our work,” writes a volunteer. Abroad: sea turtles in Greece, schools in Tanzania, archaeological digs in Turkey, refugee children in Belgium, carpentry in France, biodiversity in Spain.
57% rate the activities as extremely useful. Projects with concrete impact, responding to real needs, building important skills for social life and future work.
“I learned a lot,” “I learned carpentry skills,” “Our work impacted the community” – are some voices. Learning by doing: learning through action. Not welfare, but active solidarity. “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” is one of the principles of international volunteering, expressed by an Aboriginal activist.
THE EXPERIENCE THAT MAKES US RELIABLE
Thirty-two years of camps in Italy have taught us how to train camp leaders, create cohesive groups, balance work and free time, integrate camps into communities, guarantee credible environmental practices.
International volunteers confirm this. Four out of five satisfied with camp leaders. 85% appreciate environmental practices – not words, actions: recycling, water conservation, local food.
We’re not perfect, but the ability to create meaningful and safe experiences is consolidated.
This reliability is our guarantee when we accompany young people to the world. We’re not an agency selling packages, but an organization with a clear political vision – peace, social justice, interculture – and the concrete ability to realize it with a network of partners we’ve known for a long time and meet at least twice a year, in person.
When a parent entrusts us with their child, they know we have trained camp leaders, tested procedures. When a young person chooses us, it’s often because a friend recommended it. And that word of mouth works.
THE CHALLENGES THAT SHOW US WHERE TO IMPROVE
It would be easy to tell only beautiful stories. But it wouldn’t be honest, and above all it wouldn’t be consistent with our principles. Transparency, frank dialogue, the ability to accept criticism are part of our pedagogical approach.
In camps abroad, the most critical issue remains food and accommodation: 39% express some dissatisfaction. Perhaps we’re spoiled. But tents that leak when it rains, sometimes insufficient food, hygiene conditions not always adequate – these aren’t details: these are issues we address case by case with partners to improve year after year.
There’s also room for improvement with camp leaders abroad. 44% give the highest marks – a sign that when they’re good, they transform the experience. But 14% are dissatisfied, mainly due to language barriers or inability to manage group dynamics. Italian camp leaders, on the other hand, are appreciated by almost everyone – 84 out of 100 give excellent ratings.
For 2026 we know exactly what to do: strengthen camp leader training with partners, be transparent. Not to hide problems, but to solve them. Of course, a certain amount of flexibility is required from participants – camps are not cheap holidays and are often organized in challenging conditions by local communities. We’ve already activated a European project coordinated by Lunaria precisely on this: how to make our projects more inclusive, welcoming, safe.
WHAT REMAINS WHEN YOU RETURN
“It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. In those two weeks I had fun, got emotional, met new places, new people, new stories. An experience I would sincerely recommend to every young person, to do at least once in their life.”
In the end what remains is the feeling of having lived something important. Of being transformed and having transformed. Of having discovered that the world is more accessible and welcoming than it seems.
What remains is the discovery that there are different ways of being together, that competition is not the only possible form of relationship, that shared vulnerability is collective strength. Small personal revolutions that, multiplied by 839, become a community of young people who have experienced an alternative.
36% want longer experiences: volunteering from 1 to 12 months. Workcamps are the taste that makes you want more. 44% are willing to share the experience publicly. 27% to support future volunteers. When an experience changes you, you want to share it.
“Truly incredible, I didn’t think I’d feel so good in a foreign country. I made strong bonds with people from all over the world. I’d do it 100 times again.”
LOOKING AHEAD
2025 brought us close to pre-pandemic numbers: 839 people, perfect gender parity, 72% want to go again, 93% would recommend the experience. The 2026 challenge: transform that 72% into 80%, that 93% into 97%. Raise standards, be more demanding, invest in training.
But the biggest challenge is to defend these spaces of experimentation with non-patriarchal, non-competitive, non-nationalist relationships in a world that pushes in the opposite direction. Every workcamp is an act of resistance. Every young person who returns and says “we can live differently” is a seed of transformation.
Because these young people – the 839 of 2025 and the over nine hundred we hope for in 2026 – deserve the best. They deserve to discover that, as Cérésole wrote, peace is not just the absence of war: it’s the active construction of just, supportive, human relationships.
They deserve to come home and say, as many testimonies have confirmed: “It was the best experience of my life.”
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This article is based on reports from 312 evaluation questionnaires: 174 completed by Italian volunteers who went abroad and 138 completed by international volunteers who arrived in our camps in Italy. Every fact, every quote, every story is real. Because numbers matter, but people – and the principles that guide our work – matter more.
Lunaria APS • Rome • 33 years of commitment to peace, interculture, social justice
workcamps@lunaria.org • www.lunaria.org
