Become a host family
Become an a pair
Butrfly, an agency dedicated to your day-to-day needs
“Welcoming a stranger into your home is one of the most beautiful forms of openness there is”,
This is the spirit in which Manuela DIZIER CHANFREAU, co-founder of Butrfly, grew up and opened herself up to the world and its different cultures.
A childhood steeped in cultural diversity
During her childhood, Manuela spent most of her time after school with her aunt, who took in foreign students from all over the world. These precious moments of sharing enabled her to travel a little more every day and immerse herself in new cultures and languages.
Today, as the mother of two young girls, Manuela has opened her own home, where her family lives with young Au Pairs on a daily basis, benefiting, as she did as a child, from a life filled with joy and cultural exchange. Today, Manuela is proud to be able to offer these girls a window on the world and on other people.
In this episode of the La Grande Famille podcast, which you can find here, she tells us all about how she built her life.
An entrepreneurial spirit
Her family’s background was not in education, so Manuela was not necessarily encouraged to pursue this path. Against all the odds, she took flight and embarked on an international course of higher education. Uprooting herself was not easy, because even if starting a new chapter is exciting, it requires a bit of courage.
Her first international experience was in Mexico, where she discovered a vibrant and warm country. She was welcomed by a Mexican family, with whom she shared some very friendly and emotional moments. It was during this stay that she realised that she wanted to turn her passion for the international world and other people into her vocation.
Find out more about Butrfly and Manuela’s journey in this podcast episode!
Hospitality at the heart of all its projects
Hospitality can be defined quite simply as welcoming others into your home. This universal and intercultural value implies reciprocity, because we each need the other in order to evolve.
Welcoming a stranger into your home requires trust and a good dose of courage, but in return you’ll enjoy an experience of incredible richness. If you take the plunge and welcome a young person into your home, we can guarantee that you won’t regret it!
Our watchword? Hospitality. Behind this ambitious project lies a person with a big heart, a perfect reflection of the values that drive our company today.
Leader in the Au Pair programme
Butrfly is the first Au Pair agency in France, co-founded by Manuela and Anne-Claire in 2019. It draws on the expertise of two young mumpreneurs who have lived abroad.
It was in Mexico during their studies that Anne-Claire and Manuela struck up a strong friendship, and this trip sparked off the Butfly adventure without them even knowing it.
A social economy start-up, Butrfly has now become the leading agency for the Au Pair programme in France. It helps thousands of young people of more than 20 different nationalities to build their career paths and embark on their first international journeys.
The Butrfly agency puts families who are opening up their home and privacy in touch with young Au Pairs who are ambitious to make their project a reality. Since the creation of the Au Pair programme in 2018, Butrfly has supported more than 1,000 families and 1,200 young Au Pairs.
Since then, Butrfly has continued to develop and innovate to expand its range of services. Its services now extend beyond national borders, with Butrfly supporting families in Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Spain and even the United States.
Butrfly supports your career planning
Butrfly’s mission is to help people grow through self-discovery and discovery of the world. As part of its ongoing efforts to provide better support for young people, Butrfly offers an online career guidance assessment designed to help young people make the right decisions. “Guidance comes very early in everyone’s career and we don’t learn how to make choices and decisions”.
With this in mind, in 2020 Manuela created an Orientation programme aimed at secondary school pupils and students to guide them in building their project and their career path.
The birth of Chambre Habitant
The project was born out of a citizens’ initiative with young high school students from the Basque Country during a hackathon organised by the French Tech Pays Basque.
The aim of the event organised by the French Tech Pays Basque was to familiarise high school students with technological, scientific and digital professions. In partnership with the Communauté d’Agglomération Pays Basque, ESTIA, the Conseil Départemental and the CCI Bayonne, Butrfly submitted the problem of making student accommodation in private homes more attractive. A group of high school students from Lycée Malraux in Biarritz worked on the subject during the hackathon and won the jury prize for their pitch. That’s when we launched the development of the Chambre Habitant application.
The aim of Chambre Habitant is to encourage multi-generational sharing and to persuade the public to adopt the practice of staying with a local person on a long-term basis.
A team that lives the programme every day
Our team is made up of experts in the field of au pairing and living abroad. Butrfly is made up of French host families, former au pairs and former French expatriates who have travelled to the four corners of the globe.
Thanks to our experience, we know how best to support you in your plans to host an au pair boy or girl, or to go on an au pair trip. We understand your needs and take the time to answer all your questions.
BUTRFLY’s mission is to help its community grow through self-discovery and discovery of the world.
The whole team is united by the company’s values: caring, sharing and reliability.
Jovana :
Jovana est polyglotte; elle a vécu au Japon, en Turquie et a parcouru le monde. Elle est maman de 2 garçons. Chaque jour, elle accompagne les familles et les accueillants de Butrfly dans l’aventure Au Pair. Elle gère pour elles les formalités ainsi que toutes les démarches administratives.
Clémentine :
Clémentine is the mother of 3 children. After several years as an expatriate, she is steeped in international culture. She is in charge of developing partnerships at Butrfly. As the entry point to BUTRFLY, you’ll have the chance to get in touch with her when you use our services.
Doménica :
Doménica is from Ecuador. She is a language teacher (English, French, Spanish) and has had au pair experience with Butrfly for 2 years. She is studying for a master’s degree in international projects. As part of the Butrfly team, she helps families and au pairs to make the most of their experience. She also coordinates the administrative formalities.
Léna :
Léna is the BUTRFLY team’s communicator, behind all our media: website, social networks, brochures and videos. She liaises with the whole team to provide you with the clearest and most useful information.
Maria :
Maria is Mexican and was an Au Pair for 2 years with Butrfly. She went on to study in France with Butrfly and obtained her Master’s degree. She did her work placement with Butrfly and now helps Au Pairs to build their project: from enrolment, through choosing a family and integration, right up to the end of the stay. She is in contact with all of them.
Fanny :
Fanny a vécu aux Etats-Unis où elle a étudié un bachelor et en Allemagne. Elle accompagne les Au Pair dans leur projet et les jeunes Butrfly qui font le choix du programme d’orientation et/ou du logement chez l’habitant. Point d’entrée chez BUTRFLY, en faisant appel à nos services, vous aurez la chance d’être en contact avec elle.
The heart of BUTRFLY beats for…
A simpler everyday life
We thought the idea of welcoming an au pair into your home deserved a little refreshment! With a dash of technical innovation and a good dose of listening to meet the exact needs of young people and families, we invented ButRfly. No money exchange, simplified administrative formalities so that everyone can concentrate on what’s important: family life!
A richer life
We know that welcoming an au pair into your home is an incredibly enriching experience for everyone. For the parents, it’s an opportunity to live their role more fully and really enjoy time spent together as a family. For the children, it’s a new reference point, available and truly attentive to their day-to-day needs. It’s a calmer life, with chosen activities that allow each child to grow at their own pace. For the young au pair, it’s a unique experience that will help them mature, develop their skills and discover the world. It’s an emotionally rich experience for everyone!
A more open world
The world is changing, and so much the better! The collaborative economy is a positive opportunity, and ButRfly is the fruit of it. And in our changing world, we have a great ambition: to sow the seeds of tolerance and humanism. Because welcoming a stranger into your home is one of the most beautiful forms of openness there is…