Region: South Africa, Little Karoo

A Lagoon which is bordered by the Swartberg Mountains and the Gamka Nature Reserve and surrounded by farms, open space and breathtaking views. Amber lagoon is a hostel where people can sleep in a self-catering reed and stone chalet, splash in the big pool and enjoy home-cooked meals in the open-air bar. We also have a big garden, dogs, chickens and various indigenous plants.

Region: Guizhou Province

About our College Our College, the first non-profit college in China, is sponsored and is aimed at promoting education equality in western regions of China, leading in the innovation of new teaching styles, helping poor students gain marketable skills and find post-graduation employment and establishing a world-class college for its visually impaired student body. Through collaboration with leading enterprises, the college will provide three years of low- to no-cost higher education for students in vocational fields. The College has established School of Hotel Management, School of Computer Science and Communications, and has also been working with the Chinese Red Cross Foundation's Angel Fund to create a world-class, best-in-China college, the Angel College for the Blind.

Region: Asturias

Janet and John live in Asturias. We are now at the end of our fifth year of so called retirement here and love it. This is definitely not the Costas! We live in Valdes in Asturias….. a county of rugged coasts with super ( but often stony) beaches. The interior (where we live at 270 meters high in the hills and 30 minutes from the nearest beach) is largely mixed forest of sweet chestnut, oak, ash and beech with plantations of northern pine and eucalyptus. The valley bottoms and tops are mainly green pasture for cattle grazing or silage with flatter fields with maize for cattle. It is beautiful – a lake district without the lakes and without the crowds. Weather – This is green Spain so we have clouds and rain. The temperature is higher than the south of England – a greater noticeable difference in the back part of the year. When we bought our house we wanted a house with some land to grow veggies on. We ended up with two houses (one “the barn” had no floor and was only home to spiders and cobwebs – we called it the barn because it was the oldest and still had the cattle feeding stalls), a traditional Horeo, 5 fincas (fields - one with a small maize mill – not functioning) and two Montes (bits of hillside with lots of trees on.) Thank goodness three of our neighbours keep most of the fields clean by grazing cattle, sheep and growing grass, so I am left with only the finca (6500 m2 )below the house to look after. We have six chickens and two dogs (and a cat that adopted us). During the year we grow most of our own vegetables. John does most of the work on the land while Janet writes and directs two musical shows a year for her group of performers back in England

Region: Belize Jungle

We are a remote site located in the Belizean jungle in the foothills of the Mountain Pine Ridge. Our primary mission here is catering to our campers who are mostly backpackers traveling around Central and South America . Additionally, we operate a tropical plant and palm nursery as well as a seasonal citrus grove. Our volunteers assist in those endeavors. Volunteers work in a beautiful environment and enjoy discounted pricing on trips to amazing waterfalls, swimming holes, caves and canoeing. We only host longer term volunteers and ask for a minimum commitment of 45 days. Your time with us usually consists of 5- 6 hour workdays and then helping with evening meal preparations/cleanup in the course of a 6 day workweek. We also help our exceptional volunteers with lodging discounts in nearby San Ignacio when they need some time "in town". Additionally, we can assist with other discounted lodging around the country. Depending on the time of year the work here includes landscaping, nursery work with our tropical flowers and palms. Our primary focus, however, is assisting visiting campers in various capacities, lots of general cleaning, building & equipment maintenance and plenty of kitchen work. If a meal is cooked, volunteers help. Capable volunteers also frequently run the Outpost while we go to town, often overnight. We sometimes have special projects like trail building, construction and selling at the local market as well. Our volunteers work hard and we appreciate an ongoing positive attitude. This is a remote location and working with us is not for everyone. Some people fit here better than others and there are times when this is obvious in the first few days or so. In those cases we release volunteers from their commitment and they move along. In these cases the issue is nearly always work ethic. While we try to put our volunteers in situations that make the best use of their skills our primary goal is to accomplish our daily mission with the people we have here. Additionally, we are a family run business with our children around all the time so potential volunteers should be comfortable dealing with them on a daily basis. Volunteering here is not for everyone, we are remote and surrounded by jungle. Weak-hearted & overly sensitive need not apply, if you are scared of bugs, spiders and snakes then Central America in general is not for you. This is not the Disney version of the jungle. I say again, it is not for everyone. If you want adventure, are willing to rough it a bit and work hard, check us out. We are always looking for good people.

Region: Connacht

We are a large family running a few different enterprises during the busy summer months in a highly scenic and cultural part of Ireland. There is a blue flag 3 mile beach on our door step offering all kinds of outdoor pursuits. We have plenty of accommodation & are looking for a few workawayers who might be interested in coming to us & helping us on the farm: