Early morning flag raisings are a thing of the past, but some traditions continue at Junior Camp. This holiday camp has brought together young people from French-speaking Switzerland every year in Vaumarcus for 100 years. Festivities are planned on the site this weekend to mark this centenary.
Since its creation in 1924 by the Christian Unions, the Junior Camp has attracted approximately 15,000 participants, aged 11 to 18. Today, the event is open to everyone, regardless of gender, religion or culture. However, the girls had to wait until 1996 to be allowed to take part.
Over time, the religious dimension of the camp took a different turn. Frédéric Aeberhard is president of the organizing committee for the 100th anniversary of Camp Junior. He has been involved in this event for 50 years, with his first camp in 1974 when he was a child. At the time, “the Bible was one of the items to take in your luggage,” he recalls. Today, spirituality is more involved in reflections on social themes, explains Frédéric Aeberhard.
Certain traditions persist despite everything and among them, that of the campfire in the evening and that of “la jutée”, which consists of putting a person in the fountain for various reasons (a refusal to sing or a room that is a little too disordered, for example). example.) However, “if you abuse the hessian, you risk going through it yourself,” warns Frédéric Aeberhard.
The Junior Camp aims to be a place of openness “towards other religions, other ways of living in the world”, indicates Jean-Pierre Roth, former member of the camp management. “It’s not a sectarian camp,” he adds.
A book dedicated to the 100e The camp’s anniversary is also being prepared. There are old photos and documents there. Lucien Bringolf, one of the authors of the work, notably got his hands on old directives which show what the rules were in place in the camp in the 1920s. In this work, we also find traces of personalities who passed through this camp like the journalists Denis Barrelet and Valdo Sartori, both now deceased.
The book dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Junior Camp will be published in mid-September in an edition of 500 copies. It can be ordered on the camp site and is intended as a souvenir for those who have spent a few hours of their life by the campfire in Vaumarcus. /sbm
