Information and Requirements

This information is to be considered for the specific situation of Iceland. Feel free to contact us for any question regarding the follow points.

General information

This information is generally valid for every workcamp but you can find more specific and different details in each workcamp‘s information sheet and in our workcamp program 2010.

• Participants must be older than 18. Special cases can be permitted with valid motivations and through contacts with the sending organization.
  
• The official language in the workcamp is English.
  
• In each camp there is a camp leader and, occasionally, some camp assistants that lead the work and co-ordinate the group.
  
• Participants usually work for 6 hours, 5 days a week. Everybody must share the duties.
  
• The work requires no previous experience.
  

Participation fee

The participation fee is usually covered by the project‘s hosting organization that balances these expenses with the people going abroad for workcamps hosted by partners.
Nevertheless, Iceland lives a particular situation having not enough volunteers going abroad to balance this system: we are thus charging the participants of these expenses, to permit us to continue to work, hoping to be able, aslo through these work camps, to send more people abroad and cancel so this fee in the incoming years.
Where there is no participation fee, the project is sponsored externally from our organization, source explained in the workcamp‘s info sheet.

• The participation fee is depending on the workcamp, and to be paid upon your arrival at the workcamp‘s site to the person in charge of it (driver/workcamp leader).
  
• During the workcamp the fee covers board & lodging, insurance, study visits and administration costs.
  
• Each participant is responsible for arranging and paying ALL travel expenses ALL the way to/from the workcamp. See the details in the info sheet of the respective workcamp.
  
• WF can make reservations for the local travel if participants wish so - free of charge.
  
• The participants are expected to arrive in Iceland at least one day before the camp starts. This is because the arrival flights are usually in the afternoon or evening, when it is no longer possible to take the local transport to the workcamp site. Please inform us on the day and hour of your arrival in Iceland.
  
• An economical overnight possibility is to book the simple sleeping bag accommodation offered by us for our volunteers. You will get more information about location and price in the info sheet after having applied for a workcamp. Another possibility is to stay at the youth hostel for prices from 2.300 ISK/night (about 22 Euros/night). Accommodation there is in 2-6 bedded rooms with shared facilities (discount for HI members).
  
• The point of international arrival and departure by plane is Keflavik International Airport (KEF).
  
• Upon arrival in Keflavik Airport, the cheapest way to get to Reykjavik is taking the "fly bus which leaves after every single flight and costs 1.500 ISK (around 10 €) one way, 2.700 ISK (around 22 €) return.
  
• In each workcamp there is one excursion. We will be glad to help you organizing other trips even though we cannot charge ourselves of extra excursions for economical reasons.
  
• An information sheet about your specific workcamp will be provided after we have received your letter of interest.
  

Insurance and Medical Information

• Your sending organization usually takes automatically care of your insurance against illness, accident and third party risk while applying for a work camp. In case of any doubt regarding the insurance please apply to your sending organisation. If you‘re joining a workcamp with an organisation that is not a SCI branch and if they could not answer to any of your questions related to your insurance, please feel free to contact us for support and also to provide you one in case your sending organization really cannot provide you an insurance.
  
• Please be sure to bring along medicines that often could be hard to find, especially if you participate in workcamps taking place in isolated areas as in natural parks or in the countryside. Take also with you any kind of useful medicine against allergies and any-fever if you suffer of one of these diseases. Remember to bring sunscreen with you: the sun really burns even if we are so close to the artic circle!
  
• IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to inform us about your specific needs related to any physical or mental problem that you might have, so that we can be prepared to give you assistance in case of emergency. We will treat this information with the maximum of privacy, so don‘t worry and do it also for the respect of the other participants.
  

* You can find more information about Iceland in general in our Infosheet Iceland 2009.