Organic Farm and Earthen Eco-Construction in Rural Uttarakhand, Indian Himalayas

Infos

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  Description

  2024 UPDATE!! We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers from March onwards to help us with a variety of farm work !!
  The first half of 2024 we will focus on:
  - Finish building our compost toilet and community kitchen which will involve a lot of earth building work
  - Finish one more wooden A-frame cottage for which carpertry skills would be a bonus
  - Seting up a new big permaculture vergetable garden and maintaining excisting gardens
  - Help taking care of our animals (cows, horse, chickens, dog)
  
  Hi, we are Pawan and Marloes and own a farm in the Indian Himalayas. We want our farm to be an inspiration farm and research and learning center for local farmers, young farming entrepreneurs and farming enthusiasts from all around the world. We are an organic intergated farm and want to showcase that tourism combined with innovative organic farming based on traditional and permaculture principles can be a viable entrepreneurship alternative for local farmers around here, who otherwise are rapidly migrating to cities. Our dream is to be able to grow most of our food at our own farm and make a living from products that we grow and sell. We experiment with different "new" crops in this region, like herbs and fruits to assess the viability of growing these crops in this region. To be able to host people we are slowly building sustainable earthen building and cottages and would like to do this with the help of volunteers. We have built an animals shed, almost finished renovating the old farm barn, built a large part of the community kitchen and house, built an earthen water tank and almost finished building two wooden A-frame cottages and a innovative compost toilet building.
  
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  From March onwards, we are hosting volunteers again after quite a long time and we are super excited! We took a break since we needed time to work with labors and speed up the process of setting up the basic infrastructre needed to start hosting volunteers and guest in a better and more comforable way than before. We have a full fletched rainwaterharvesting system now! Water is flowing from taps and we even have a shower. We have a small (but comfortable) compost toilet which we will soon convert to a more innovative version and a part of the community kitchen finished to be able to cook for everyone. We have space for 4 people. We will be working on finishing the current building projects (outside kitchen area, compost toilet, A-frame cottages) and will at the same time do quite a bit of gardening work so we can feed ourselves with homegrown vegetables as much as possible. We also need help taking care of the trees, herbs and all the farm animals. To finish the building we will need to do wattle & daub earth work, earthen plastering work, lime painting, wood work, plumbing and electricity work etc. We prefer people with skills in construction and it would be good to mention this in your message, but unskilled but hard-working and enthusiastic people are also welcome. You will share the room with 3 others and we hope you will help us in the cooking of our shared meals. It is important to note that we do live a primitive life, but things have improved already enormously over the last years and we did manage very well for the last 5-6 years of staying here ourselves. We would like you to stay a minimum of two weeks, but preferably longer!
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  Pawan has an engineering and environmental management background and whatever he has learnt about farming is through volunteering in various farms across Europe and Asia. Pawan: "Since my childhood I dream to be a farmer and to start something like this and I feel really lucky to find this beautiful place to start. We practice permaculture and indigenous Indian natural farming practices and going towards being self sustainable."
  
  Marloes is originally from the Netherlands but fell in love with the Indian Himalayas. She has a background in civil engineering and loves building with mud and working with the animals. Marloes: "Living a self (of community)-sufficient life and sharing this life and the knowledge we gained is my absolute dream. Living remote, peaceful and with nature."
  
  As a volunteer you get to explore the untouched Himalayan villages and get involved with the community.
  If you are interested in doing some trekking nad exploring around, there is a mountain called Nag Tibba (approx 3000 metres ASL.) close by and lots of beautiful villages around.

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Aide avec des éco-projets

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  S’occuper des animaux

  Aide dans une ferme

  Aide à la maison

  Accueil / tourisme

  Entretien général
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  Farm is located in rural part of Himalayan Uttarakhand. Place is totally untouched and away from road connectivity so you will find rural authenticity and a lovely community around. Experience joy of giving and serving the community around and be part of various festivals in regions around. There are lots of local Himalayan village festivals, gatherings, marriages which we are invited so you can join us for those events.

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  Aide

  Help related to taking care of trees, sowing, weeding and transplanting. Building of earthen eco houses and general maintenance of farm.

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  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Anglais: Courant
  Hindi: Courant
  Nepali: Courant
  Hollandais: Courant
  Allemand: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  Cet hôte a indiqué qu’il souhaitait faire partager sa propre langue ou en apprendre une nouvelle.
  Contactez-le pour en savoir plus.
  
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  Hébergement

  Accommodation is in traditional stone and mud house. We have 1 room (diveded in two slightly more prive sections) for volunteers with 4 single beds (for couples we can add the beds together) with each a wooden trunk to store your personal items. and lots of camping area. We mostly collect firewood from the jungle around and use it for cooking. The place is organic by default so all the local food will be organic. However, at the moment we do still rely on produce from the market. We do have a few 2 person tent and some spare sleeping bag if you need.

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  Autres infos...

  Plenty of opportunities to hike and trek around with beautiful forests and with view of snow capped Himalayas. We are at an altitude of 2100 meters so the weather is lovely here.
  
  To reach farm you need to catch a bus from Dehradun railway station which will drop you at Damta. We can pick you up from there, the village is further 16km from Damta and to reach farm you need to hike for 4kms (approx 1.5 hrs). If you feel comfortable to reach the village on your own, that would of course be very nice! And if you are an experienced trekker, we can send you the trekking route and you can hike up on your own (the path is easy but steep). This saves us a day worth of time. If you are not comfortable, no worries, we will pick you up or arrange a pickup from Damta.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  Cet hôte a dit qu’il acceptait les personnes voyageant avec un animal.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Plus de 2

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  Nombre d'heures attendues

  Maximum 5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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