Finland: ESC: Feel the Forest 2026

About the local hosting organization

Metsäkartano is one of nine Finnish Youth Centres specialised in youth work. Our function is to develop the methods used in the field of youth work, to further the skills of the youth, and to enable young people’s travelling domestically and abroad. We are supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture and we follow the current Youth Act and Youth Policy Programme. As a Youth Centre the purpose of Metsäkartano is to promote international youth co-operation, non-formal education and environmental education. We offer a safe and secure environment for camps, courses, trainings and activities - 365 days a year. Our facilities are designed for the youth and the premises are in the heart of the beautiful Finnish nature. We want to empower kids and young people in various ways, mainly by organising over night camps, youth exchanges, voluntary service opportunities and social youth work camps, camp schools and family camps. Metsäkartano has strong responsible and sustainable values, which are visible in our everyday actions. The basis of our work is at environmental education and experiential learning - and exploring the great outdoors. We want to create opportunities for people to get stronger connection with themselves and the nature. We have made connecting with the nature easy as possible, since our learning environment is the Finnish nature. We are awarded as a social enterprise, as we target our profits for promoting our youth work.

Presentation of the programme

We are an outdoor education youth center and we offer for July-August, a three week long volunteering opportunity for those who don't currently work or study. For example if you didn't manage to get into the studies for this autumn, no problem, this is a perfect opportunity to start with ESC volunteering, maybe you will later on find a longer project as well! In this project the volunteers work daily with tasks related to preserving and creating new outdoor spaces in the forest which are used in our educational programs. Some tasks can be indoors as well, especially when rainy weather. More detailed tasks will be shared day by day. Best is to join the project with a curious mind and a good attitude, and flexibility to work together. Volunteers work never alone, always with a work leader and each other. The idea is to develop group working skills, communication skills, all kind of useful skills for future working life and studies! No previous experience needed!

About the accomodation

Volunteers will live in a shared log cabin called METSÄPIRTTI. Metsäpirtti is 400m away from the main building and it has 6 rooms and a common living room, kitchen and showers and a sauna. Volunteers will be sharing rooms, it is very likely that each volunteer will share the room with one more person. Breakfast and lunch are often served in our youth center restaurant. Evenings and weekends volunteers either eat in the restaurant buffet, or they get ingredients to prepare their own meals in their own house. Transport from house to work is by foot, it's very close.

About the leisure activities

There will be training to all the work tasks and to live and work together. Also knowledge about the surrounding nature and nature survival will be provided for the volunteers. We also have extra staff resources for this project to help all the group to live together, and to make all daily life work nicely so everyone can feel good and participate as equally as possible.

Requirements

The Participant profile: We invite participants 18-30 years old to join this activity. Any profile who fit to this age group can apply, but we give priority to those who are not in school, not in education and who have no previous experience in volunteering. We are also committed to make adjustments on this volunteering to be as accessible as possible, taking into account on top of physical accessibility also social accessibility. We can organize extra support for volunteers should they need it and we can adjust the working tasks. But profile of the volunteer and possible special needs must be described already in the application. :) We are also lgbtiq+ friendly location. At this stage, our call is closed for everyone else BUT WE HAVE 1-2 SPOTS FOR VOLUNTEERS COMING FROM FINLAND. So the call is for now open only for those coming from Finland. Follow us in Instagram for more projects @ metsakartanointernationalDeadline: