Area: 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

Area: Tanahun, Gandaki Zone

Hi My name is Manjil. I am the principal of a school in rural Nepal. The School is the only free private educational institution in the country. This is its first year. Without Volunteers, the project will not be able to run in the upcoming years. That would be terrible because a lot of children would be very sad :( There are many things you could do here. You could help teach or be involved in other ideas. Me and my friends here are constantly trying to come up with new ideas to help support this free school. We have agricultural land, art projects and construction ideas too. The families of the students support the school with vegetables and fruits and are always ready to help out in order to keep sustaining this free school.

Area: Australia

We live just outside Perth in Western Australia. A new baby in the family, plus a 2 year old, Mum works on the property, teaching horseriding to those with disabilities. We are outdoor and fairly active people, and enjoy sharing some of the outdoor activities we do, such as fishing, snorkelling, 4x4 driving.

Area: Kebili

We are a couple Dutch 44 and Tunisian 32 setting up a horse farm in the very South of Tunisia, in Douz in a Bedouin culture. We have 7 horses, 3 dogs and 2 cats to look after. From the end of September until the end of May we organise horse and dromedary trekkings through the Tunisian Sahara. We only take experienced horse riders as volunteers! Others are very very welcome as (paying) guests. During summer you can expect a lot of Bedouin weddings, for photographers a must to experience!

Area: DORDOGNE ( Aquitaine - Périgord )

Farm of 20 hectares with wood, lakes, land and grass. Animals : some local kinds (chicken and rabbits), sheeps, dunkeys, ducks, cats. Garden : different kind of vegtables . Would like to start to use the BRF method. Micro-brewerie : blond, amber, wallnut, chesnut, truffle and cacoa beer ! Most of our products are transformed for our guests We have five guest rooms and two holiday houses. People with skills in building and farming are welcome. Various types of work , depending of the season, the weather conditions, the exhibitions etc ... Involved in applications of economic and ecologic energy saving .(start up) We speek Dutch, French, English and German