International audience The action of the voluntary workers with the elderly people This article aims at giving information about a survey that is now being made in the association " the small brothers of the poor people " that works with the elderly people, this survey is carried out within the framework of the European programme Leonardo. In this article, questions are made, not only about the reasons why people choose to work as volunteers but also about the difficulties they have to deal with when working with elderly people. Thanks to the 97 questionnaires that we have gathered, we have tried to understand the trajectory of the voluntary workers in order to understand the sense they give to their activity today.