Area: Waikato

We are only a 25 minute drive to the Hobbit tours at Matamata. Middle aged couple who back pack them slves, enjoy the company of travellers. Have four adult children who visit often. 2 hectare lifestyle block, beautifully treed with stream, large vegie garden, small orchard, calves raised for family table, 2 cats, 1 dog. Short drive to Hamilton city and several small towns - some transport available most days. No smokers please.

Area: Liguria, Italy

We have a small olive farm just inland from Sanremo in Liguria, Italy. We are in the process of obtaining our organic certificate and intend to offer farm holidays for people who would enjoy the peace and quiet of living in our olive grove for a week or two. We have lived in Italy for 9 years and this is our first venture into olive farming. We are loving it! We'd love to have volunteers who are looking to get away from it all. Having said that we are very close to the South of France and Monte Carlo, plus Turin and Milan so not exactly in the middle of nowhere. The village of Apricale is small and is classed as one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. It's a real Italian experience.

Area: Sicily - Palermo

Hi, we're a family of four: Raffaella, 36, who works for a cultural services company, Franco, 35, engineer and two kids: Stefano, 3 years old, and Giulio, 3 months old. The Sicily is an island and we'd love our children could learn others languages and others way of life. We're absolutely sure that meeting people coming form other countries is the best way to learn.

Area: Copan

A small hostel in the heart of the colonial town of Copan Ruinas in Honduras. We have been running this business for a year now, and really enjoy being in touch with the travellers coming through and we are giving our best to make their time as pleasant as possible. Besides offering private rooms and dorm beds, we organize tours and can book shuttle busses to other destinations in central america for our guests. Besides me, Fernando, and my wife, there is only 2 more people working here. Therefore we could use some help! Come and teach us English, learn about how to run a hostel and expercience how the locals live in Honduras.at least two weeks for volunteers work.

Area: Cahuita, Caribbean Costa Rica

It's not what we do, it's how we do it. An environmental education and sustainable-living centre based out of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Our mission is to connect local and international communities to further ecological research and information sharing and to ultimately further – make simpler and more accessible – holistic sustainable living approaches for both our local communities and international visitors (in their own lives and their communities as well). Our main international reach towards these goals comes through our highly-reviewed Volunteer Program, in which we work with host campuses to provide an experiential-learning centre not only for daily visitors but for a completely-integrated volunteer work-living experience. Five years after our first opening and the establishment of different learning campuses, we are now establishing itself at it's final home location, our first-ever own land, on an organic cacao farm with stunning ocean and forest views. This will one day soon become another of our sustainable-living centres and bio-dynamic research farms, active and working, where all of our operations and activities are carried-out in the most environmentally-friendly, ecological and sustainable – in all facets of the word – manner possible. For now,while we are not currently active with our full formal learning programs, but we have now begun the first building on our final cumulative campus and are once again ready to begin receiving help. Similar to our beginnings on other campuses, here we are going to do much again and much more new, starting now with the natural sustainable building of all our new structures. We are building in the 'SuperAdobe'-style, which utilizes the earth or "resources available right under your feet" to construct sustainable, affordable, simple and yet beautiful, super-strong and resilient structures. If you want to learn how to build your own life-long housing from the earth, or simply to be a part of a project towards this goal, then we could use your help here! Almost 90% of our time will be concentrated strongly upon earth-bag construction, and the rest upon bio-dynamic lands stewardship, permaculture & organic gardens design, organic cacao & banana stewardship, and such tasks. Our new land is located next to Cahuita National Park (1km from the National Park entrance and 4-5km from Cahuita town centre), with places to stay nearby for as little as $9/night and fantastic nearby activities. We are looking for friends and helpers to share with us the experience of this new place and land, with whom to together learn, grow. We are asking for 5 hours of work per day, for 6-days per week, with a minimum 1-week commitment. The program is free, with volunteers responsible for their own food and lodgings. Each week, we will dedicate 4-5 days to physical earth-bag building, sustainably constructing our new home and community. The other 1-2 days of the week will be dedicated to bio-dynamic land, organic gardens or cacao stewardship work, all with accompanying learning & teaching. Volunteers will gain hands-on experience in and learn about, primarily: - sustainable construction through earth-bag building - bio-dynamic gardening/agriculture and a permaculture approach - organic cacao cultivation and stewardship - cacao processing on the path to chocolate - organic banana stewardship & cultivation - home- & community-garden design - beginning your own organic home garden If you would like to learn more about our current call for volunteers, please write us back and (now that we are "returning"...) we will respond to you promptly with more information. Our call for help begins for April 22, and continues through this summer. For our full formal deep-learning programs, please continue to check back with us for our previous offerings and much more including training workshops, courses and certifications... coming on a date dependent upon how much help we receive building the place first ; ) Pura Vida y Pura Tierra!