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15 May 2024
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Description
We are Milena and Simon (28/37 years old from Germany and Italy), and last year we finally realized our dream of buying a little house with a big garden in the northwest of Italy. We moved here last winter and started with renovation works on the house and with the warmer temperatures we are now moving our focus to the garden. A couple of years ago we were both volunteering in ecological projects and organic farms and would like to slowly develop our own project, and would be happy to welcome some helping hands at our place.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Art Projects
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Help with Computers/ Internet
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
As we are an international couple, we can definitely offer an interesting cultural exchange – meaning language teaching (Italian/German as native language, English as a common language) and we can share some typical Italian and/or German recipes.
You are welcome to use our musical instruments or do a jam session with us (we have two guitars, drums and soon a keyboard, although we're bad musicians ^ ^).
We can borrow you a bike (at the moment we only have one that needs fixing), but we can also make some time to drop you off at some nearby points of interest or do a hike together.
If you are an artistic person, we have lots of different types of colours and materials that we are happy to share with you.
Projects involving children
This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.
Help
As we just recently moved here, we are still in the phase of getting to know our place ourselves and figuring out which projects we would like to start with. Our focus in the next couple of months is the creation of an organic veggie garden and a space to keep some animals. Everything we do is a bit of an experiment, but our general goal is to do our best to respect nature, sharing our little corner with our friends, family and guests.
We can definitely arrange flexible volunteering hours, depending on the needs/wishes of the volunteers. We ask for a maximum of 30 working hours per week, preferably with longer days on the weekend, because we are both working from the computer each morning from Monday-Friday.
Languages
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Italian: Fluent
Spanish: Intermediate
French: BeginnerThis host offers a language exchange
Even though our native languages are Italian/German, we speak mostly English. We can offer some help in language learning and are also always interested in improving our Spanish or French or re-starting with Slovenian.
Accommodation
Our house consists of two little apartments, one (upstairs), it’s where we are living, and the other one will be available to the volunteers (each volunteer will get their own room, but the bathroom and kitchen have to be shared among us and the volunteers). However, we also have a space for tents or even vans.
On certain occasions, volunteers might have to share a room with other volunteers/visitors.
Our house is currently undergoing renovation, so it’s not always pristine and tidy. Additionally, being located in the countryside means we share our surroundings with a variety of animals. We’re looking forward to welcoming dogs and raising chickens soon, but in the meantime, we’re surrounded by a diverse range of wildlife, from mice to mosquitoes, dormice to green lizards, and numerous species of bugs. So, please, keep this in mind, you must enjoy nature in all of its shades. ^ ^
If you are a smoker, we prefer that you smoke outside the property.
We are both vegetarians, but we are also open to hosting meat eaters as long as you buy the meat and prepare it yourself.
We’re also very happy to accommodate vegans and will happily adopt a vegan diet while you’re staying with us.
What else ...
When we were volunteers ourselves, we always aimed to be kind, respectful, and polite towards other volunteers and hosts. Now that we are hosts, we hope for the same from volunteers: to be respectful of the property and its inhabitants, to strive to be friendly, and to keep the common spaces tidy.
In our village, there is a delicious pastry shop and two coffee bars to hang out at. There is a bus going to Ivrea, the nearest city where you can find everything that a small city has to offer. In Ivrea there is also a train station that can bring you also to bigger cities like Torino or Milano, or more into the Alps towards Aosta.
In general, our area is particularly adapted to nature lovers, because there is a great diversity of landscapes: flat area perfect for cycling, mountains perfect for hiking, forests, a river, and two beautiful lake areas that we can also drive you to.
Of course can also simply relax here on our property, enjoying a good book in the hammock.
Also, our home is close to the historical “Via Francigena“, so we may soon start to host its pilgrims. That’d be cool!
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
We both work from home from the computer, so we we are mostly busy in the morning hours with our own work and can therefore definitely accommodate digital nomads that have similar working hours. We have a relatively stable internet connection and often do video calls that work without problems.
Space for parking camper vans
We have a relatively big yard and therefore space for vans.
Can possibly accept pets
We are very happy to host volunteers with dogs (or other animals) as we are also animal lovers! We are planning on getting a dog soon, but so far, we have not yet found the right one.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
Maximum 5 hours a day, 5 days a week
