Help us create a paradise community while learning about permaculture, eco-building in Covilha, Portugal

Informationen

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  Beschreibung

  !Special help needed in March for building a natural pool!
  
  We are a group of 12 friends from Germany, who bought a piece of rural land with a big old ruin close to the Serra da Estrella. We came here to live closer to nature and to have more opportunities of personal development.
  Together we are learning a lot about different topics like permaculture, natural building, community building, agroforestry, apiculture and selfsustainability.
  
  Our little project startet in August 2021, when we, a mix of biologists and social workers, first arrived on our new home.
  We had to clean the land from bushes and wild growing trees, because the property was not touched for many decades before our arrival.
  
  Even though there is still a lot of wilderness on the land, today there are more or less 5 of our group living full time on the property and working on it, while the others are coming by from time to time when their jobs in Germany allow it.
  
  Our community involves three couples and 5 individuals in their 20s and 30s. There is also a 2 year old child and a newborn, as well as two dogs and two cats.
  We share a lot of time together, but everyone is also doing their own stuff and projects. We appreciate to have privacy as well as shared quality time. For that reason we don't live all under the same roof, but instead everyone has their own little island on the property.

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  Arten von Hilfe und Lernmöglichkeiten

  Kunstprojekte

  Sprachpraxis

  Hilfe bei Ökoprojekten

  Unterrichten

  Gartenarbeiten

  Heimwerker- und Bauarbeiten

  Betreuung von Tieren

  Mithilfe auf einem Bauernhof

  Babysitten und Kinderbetreuung

  Zubereiten / Kochen von Mahlzeiten für die Familie

  Hausarbeiten

  Handwerkliche Arbeiten
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  UNO-Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung, die dieser Gastgeber verfolgt

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  Was ist das?
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  Kultureller Austausch und Lernmöglichkeiten

  During your stay you would be a part of our group and get to know the early stages of a new born community. Since we started we learned a lot about community building and living together. We try to practice open communication and grow together as much as possible. We would like to give a little example of how you could make a project like this happen.
  We do a lot in a learning by doing way, but looking back at how we started, we can definitely share some of the experiences we gained on the way. We increased our knowledge about permaculture design, gardening, composting, fermentation and sustainable living a lot while beeing in this project.
  We can exchange about water management and restoration and managing a land with more people.
  We are all beginners and learners in what we do, but very curious and willing to listen to nature and people that know already more than we do.
  We are also interested in artistic projects or alternative schooling (we have three kids here) and rural tourism. We would not define ourselfes as experts in these topics. Everyone of us is still learning and participating in workshops or doing investigations on their own.

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  Projekte mit Kindern

  Dieses Projekt schließt möglicherweise den Umgang mit Kindern ein. Mehr Informationen findest du in unseren Verhaltensregeln und Tipps hier.

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  Arbeit

  We need help with:
  
  -Cleaning the water mines, if you like to get your hands dirty ;)
  
  -Ridding the land from weed like broom, bramble and mimosa trees,
  if you would like to release pressure. This is what we do the most.
  
  -Building sheds, to store material and keep it away from heat/rain.
  
  -Weeding and gardening in our recently established mandala garden.
  Permaculture experienced people welcome!
  
  -take care of kids sometimes, if you like.
  
  We expect you to be quite independent in your free time. We value our private space and time as much as the community time and hope for you to be able to also entertain yourself in nature. The group here is always changing and most of the time we are a bigger group and have friends visiting. But depending on when you come it could be quiet and family-like.
  
  List of special work on the land around the year:
  
  Spring:
  
  all Spring - a lot of garden preparation for the upcoming season, growing little plants etc.
  
  February/March - Planting potatos, wine trimming
  
  Mai - Festival (prepare a festival with us, decorate the land and work on the nessecary infrastrukture)
  
  June - wine is ready, filling wine in bottles, a lot of wine drinking is possible but not necessary
  
  Summer:
  
  Juli - Potato harvest, forest work, cleaning the land
  
  August -
  
  !Building of a cabin/addition to a yurt!
  
  Harvest and preservation of harvest (cooking loads of veggies in glasses, do fermenting etc.)
  
  Autum:
  
  September/October
  - Wine harvest
  --building of natural pool and retention ponds
  
  
  
  All Winter:
  
  Work in the forest and burning/shredding biomass
  Work on the Watersystem on the Land (Lake building, cleaning watermines...)
  Cleaning the land from bushes etc.

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  Sprachen

  Gesprochene Sprachen
  Deutsch: Fließend
  Englisch: Fließend
  Spanisch: Grundkenntnisse
  Portugiesisch: Grundkenntnisse

  Dieser Gastgeber bietet Sprachaustausch an
  Learning portuguese is important to all of us because we want to integrate and adapt to the local culture. We would love portuguese mothertongues to help us with this! Most of us learned the basics of portuguese or do at least understand a lot, but it would be amazing to practice more. In exchange we can teach german, as we are native speakers and we can use and improve our english all together. The group changes sometimes, so it would be important to talk about the languages which are spoken here before you come. We are all fluent in english, but there is not always a person on the land speaking spanish or greek.
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  Unterkunft

  Our big ruin is still waiting to be restored, so we cannot offer proper accomodation. You will have to come with your own van or tent and find youself a nice spot on the land. If you don't have a tent just talk to us, we have a few small ones to lend out.
  
  We have a well equipped community kitchen/communal area, where you can prepare your meals. We will expect from you to be responsible for your food, and maybe connect with other volunteers for it. Out of logistical reasons we will only provide the living space and sanitary facilities such as hot shower and composting toilet.
  
  But depending on the time you are here it's also very likely that we share at least one meal all together. Especially when the group is a bit bigger it's nice to end the day with good food in company.
  
  It depends on the situation, but normaly we expect 4 hours a day, 3 days a week (its nicer to have full work days and full free days).

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  Was noch ...

  Our land is located near Covilha, just under the Serra da Estrela National Park- Portugals biggest mountain area. The mountains are a very good place for hiking and short trips. A lot of cold lakes and river beaches invite for a bath and the view from up there is incredible.
  
  The city Covilha is the biggest in the region. Because it has an univerity there are a lot of students and different possibilities to go out in the night. If you come by bus you will have to get off at the busstop in Covilha. We will then pick you up and drive together to the land.
  
  Our place is a bit isolated and it will be hard to get into town without a car. If you don't have a car you will be able to join into shopping trips and other adventures that we do. We are always happy to show people around in the beautiful mountain area close to us.
  
  A taxi into town is around 10 euros.
  
  The next supermarket (Continente) is 4,5 km away.
  Our favourite Pizza Place is 3,4 km away ;)
  
  There are also a lot of opportunities to hike around our place. For example there is the river Zézere in more or less 25 minutes walking distance, which is a nice opportunity to have a refreshing dip into cold water.

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  Etwas mehr Information

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    Internet Zugang

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    Eingeschränkter Internet Zugang

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    Wir besitzen Tiere

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    Wir sind Raucher

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    Familien möglich

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  Platz zum Abstellen von Camper Vans

  It's very welcome, if you bring your own home or car, that gives you a lot of freedom to explore the beautiful area around, but not necessarily required. We have only a dirtroad as access to the Quinta, that can be quite rough, but so far every vehicle made it to the land and could also leave with no problem. The largest Vans that visited so far where about 6-7 meters long and up to 2.5-3m high. We have good flat places to park Caravans and Vans. Though it´s on a field and if it rains a lot it can get a bit muddy.

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  Kapazität - wie viele Workawayer maximal

  mehr als zwei

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