Who are we?

We are a team of enthusiastic volunteers and highly motivated parents (and children) who work to help other families. The founder of this unique organization is still very much involved in its operation.

Ximena, Jacques, Katherine, Christine, Dona, Helga

The Executives for the different countries and programmes:

Jacques and Katherine Pinault, the founders. They are based near Bordeaux. Katherine and Jacques are responsible for the English speaking countries. Jacques is also the General Executive. They have four grown up children who all did at least one exchange. Jacques and Katherine would like to ease up in 2011, so we are actively looking for a new Executive for the English speaking countries. Interested? Contact Jacques. jacques@enfamille.com and  katherine@enfamille.com.

Donatienne Debains (Dona) is the French Executive. She is in charge of everything concerning the French families from the time that they first contact us right through to the beginning of their exchange. She lives in Bordeaux and she comes into the office twice a week, otherwise she works from home. Dona and Henri’s youngest son, Titouan had a wonderful exchange in California. dona@enfamille.com.

Helga Unseld, the German Executive. Helga and Uno live in Ulm, in Germany. Two of their four children spent 6 months in France. Dennis spent his six months at Jacques and Katherine’s ! helga@enfamille.com

Ximena Niell Pena is the Spanish Executive. Ximena and Lony live near Malága, with their twin daughters, Maki and Tina. Maki and Tina have already spent 6 months in France and 6 months in Germany. 4 very successful exchanges with friendships for life !   ximena@enfamille.com

Christine Viguier is in charge of the 3-month exchanges with Canada for Teenagers. Christine and Bruno live near Bordeaux. Their two children have also experienced a six-month exchange with Spain! christine@enfamille.com

Being a non commercial association, we have 5 remarkable committee members: Christian, President; Jean-François, Treasurer; Frédéric, Secretary; François and José. All of them have lived the En Famille experience (as parents). En Famille could not function without their work, their help, their understanding. They are all volunteers and they deserve our respect for their deep involvement.

We meet and talk regularly to improve En Famille. We are a good bunch of happy parents who believe passionately in the ideas that we want to promote.
We also have Local Representatives in the different countries, and many other En Famille parents who help us according to their competence, educators, doctors, insurers, computer experts, headteachers etc.

Our association is written in the French Republic’s official bulletin number 236, page 8927, and entry number 4735.
We are an approved Educational Association for Young People, our registration number is 33.495.93.010.
Finally we are a member of UNSE (Union Nationale des organisations de Séjours longue durée à l’Etranger) a French body that groups together a certain number of organisations that deal with long term exchanges of high quality.  www.unse.org.