Broby

Broby is a small village (about 4 000 persons) in the very south of Sweden - Copenhagen is only 1,5 hours away - with good communications by bus to Kristianstad, Hässleholm and Älmhult (where the world's first IKEA is situated). We have a couple of schools, several stores and a library. Broby-Emmislövs församling is the local Christian parish within the Church of Sweden. The church building has been situated in the absolute centre of the village since almost the time of the vikings. Close to it you find the activity house (Församlingshemmet) with the parish's office, and next to it you find Prästgården, the 150 years old and beautiful house where the volonteers live. Our mission as a church is that the world shall live and have life through God's grace in Jesus. Our main activities are worship service, education, charity and mission. According to our national Church Order, we have a responsability for all persons within the geographic area of the parish. Therefore we are an active part of the society and the people living here. Their issues are ours and our parish have been engaged in the wellbeing of our society for more than 800 years. We aim to include all people in the society, regardless of their economic status, health status, work status, race or nationality, age or other labels. Today we have a great diversity of engaged people in our church, with people from Europe, Africa and Asia, people from different social contexts, people in all ages and people in and out of health. The parish has about 25 persons employed, and hundreds of active volonteers. For us, the ESC volonteering programme is a valueable part of what it means beeing a church: The church is about building a new humanity, where there are no "jew or greek, slave or free, man or woman, but all are one in Christ" (St Paul's letter to the Galatians). So we recieve youths from other parts of the world, get to know them and them us, we learn from them and them from us, and gradually connections are made between people in different parts of Europe that otherwise wouldn't have met. The ESC volonteers live with other youths from Sweden in the former vicar's house, "Prästgården" (or just "PG"). The house is a popular place for youths of the village to come and visit, play games, fika (ie a cup of tea) and just hang around. The volonteers are engaged in different church activities, as children's groups, language café, the international Alpha course, confirmation class, youth group and camps. The main focuses for the volonteer activities are children and youths, people from other countries and people with different social needs.