Civic service
What is Civic Service?
The Civic Service scheme was created in 2010. It offers young people the chance to take part in missions of general interest. The missions are open to everyone, with no qualifications or professional experience required.
The aim is to give young people the opportunity to discover a professional environment and reflect on their future plans, while also promoting social diversity, citizenship and initiative. The assignments enable volunteers to develop formal and informal skills. Learning and open-mindedness through openness to the world are at the heart of this scheme.
Civic Service is aimed at young people aged between 16 and 25 – from the age of 18 for international missions – and up to 29 for young people with disabilities. Volunteers receive civic and citizenship training, which is compulsory for each assignment.
What is Civic Service at Planète Urgence?
At Planète Urgence, we are convinced that volunteering is a lever for sustainable and integrated development. Civic Service, in particular, allows young people to discover a new environment, a new culture, to open up to the world and to others. It also gives our partner organisations the opportunity to welcome a young volunteer who can contribute his or her outlook, culture, ability to create, initiate and motivation to be useful and exchange.
We offer support missions to partner organisations in the countries where we operate. The assignments we carry out focus on our three areas of intervention:
Doing a Civic Service mission abroad with Planète Urgence
Terms and conditions of Civic Service
- Be aged between 18 and 25
- Have not previously carried out a Civic Service assignment
- Be a French national, a national of a Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area, or have been legally resident in France for more than one year. Further information.
Volunteers must undergo civic and citizenship training before they can go out on the field. We call this training at departure. This is a 3-day training course: 2 days of theory provided by the Planète Urgence team and 1 day of PSC1 training.
The rights of volunteers
- For assignments in France, volunteers receive an allowance of €489.59 per month. This is paid to the volunteer’s account by the government.
- For international assignments, volunteers receive an allowance of €541.17 per month. This is paid to the volunteer by the French government into the volunteer’s account.
- The host organisation pays the volunteer a subsistence allowance of €111.35. This can be paid in cash or in kind by covering accommodation and/or food and/or transport costs. To find out more, visit the Civic Service funding page.
Planète Urgence takes out insurance for international missions. It covers volunteers for civil liability, medical care and possible repatriation.
Please note: plane tickets to and from the mission, visas and vaccinations are entirely at the volunteer’s expense.
Support
The specificity of Planète Urgence’s missions lies in the double tutoring set up.
The volunteer is accompanied on site by a tutor appointed by the host organisation. They are also accompanied from the Paris head office by the volunteer officer. Regular telephone calls are made throughout the assignment, which ends with a debriefing session.
The support consists of making sure that everything goes smoothly on a personal, logistical and operational level, as well as working on the project for the future after the assignment.
To apply
Go to the Civic Service Agency website to choose your assignment.
You must apply directly on the website. No qualifications or professional experience are required. All that is required is strong motivation, maturity and an interest in environmental, sustainable development and intercultural issues.
We cannot accept all applicants, but all applications are read and processed. It takes around 2 and a half months to finalise recruitment.
