Help to create an ecovillage together in Ariège, France

Details

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  Description

  🙋‍♀️ Hey you! Thanks for reading our profile (entirely, if you contact us, please!)
  
  ➜ Soonest availabilities: from the third week of October. For at least 3 weeks.
  4 weeks is better :)
  ➜ Tuesdays work out best for us in terms of arrival days.
  ➜ Long-term volunteers (several months) very welcome!
  
  🚭 The ecovillage is a non-smoker area and we don't welcome cats or dogs (not to bother wildlife already thriving here).
  
  ⚠️ The main task at the moment is carpentry, so that's what you'll be doing, with our carpenter Gaëtan :)
  We're looking for volunteers with wood skills - good handy(wo)men. You can use a drill ? a screwdriver? have a nice work ethic (able to remember where this tool was before using it...? 😊) ! Motivated, enthusiastic and hard-working people, also creative because we value that a lot :). And... Who can cook for several people. Yeah I know, we're looking for the perfect volunteers ahah!
  
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  ❖ Who are we? ❖
  Two people are taking care of this Workaway profile : you will be talking to either Florane or Nathalie.
  
  10 humans are living here permanently for now : Jean-Marc, Gaëtan & Claire, Nathalie & Tomer and their son Pom (6), and the Flos (Florane and Florian) and their daughters Gaïa (5) and Yin (less than 1 year old). Three generations, several nationalities.
  Little by little some more families will settle!
  A dozen chickens also live here.
  
  ❖ The project ❖
  We bought a place in spring 2023 and we are transforming it into an ecovillage. There are 45 hectares of forest and green grazing lands, we can see the Pyrennees mountain from up the hill, there's a big pond where we can hear the frogs and the ducks... Several houses are already built and need to be renovated.
  
  The goal is to create :
  • 🏘️ A living area - several families are in the process of joining the project to become residents ! That's our first step : renovating the houses so that people can live here and bring their energy into the project.
  • 🌱 A permaculture collective farm (in the long run): vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, algeas, nuts, honey, maybe cheese. Our goal is to create a resilient farm, with several farmers, that can provide food for the residents and nearby villages.
  • 🚸 A place to learn and share : hosting retreats, workshops, trainings, children camps, conferences, even festivals one day!
  
  This is still the very begining of our project. You're like a small water drop, and one day a wonderful river will flow, thanks to all of you. We need YOU to keep this project alive ! We really want to create here the atmosphere we had so many times during our travels, when we were volunteers : a group of people from many different places doing projects together and creating something wonderful !
  
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  ❖ Hosting ❖
  Volunteers are fully part of the project. We've been volunteers during several years during our travels and we would like to host now!
  We welcome: motivated and enthusiastic people ! Eager to learn and who are happy to work. Responsibility is also very important : we'd like you to be able to wash your dishes without us asking for it, not to wait until the compost toilets overflow to empty it in the compost bins, who are able to use a broom when the floor is dirty... And we don't welcome phones-addicts ;)
  
  We prefer to host people for at least one month as we want you to feel at home in our place, and we can know each other better... :)

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Art Projects

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  Interests

  

  Mountain

  

  Camping

  

  Nature

  

  Yoga / Wellness

  

  Dancing

  

  Water sports

  

  Outdoor activities

  

  Hiking

  

  Cycling

  

  Architecture

  

  Animals

  

  DIY & crafts

  

  History

  

  Plant care

  

  Music

  

  Art & design

  

  Books

  

  Photography

  

  Languages

  

  Gardening

  

  Cooking & food

  

  Writing

  

  Performing arts

  

  Drawing & painting

  

  Carpentry

  

  Astronomy

  

  Hitchhiking

  

  Sustainability

  

  Self development

  

  Farming
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  What's this?
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  ❖ We offer ❖
  
  - A chance to learn more about carpentry and building wood houses.
  - Shared lunch with other volunteers and most of the time with at least one resident.
  - Moments of relaxation, going to swim in the huge lake nearby (in the summer!) or in the river,
  - An amazing place to meditate (or sing or dance or just walk!) in the forest...
  - Deep conversations (and not deep also!) about our dreams, our pasts, sharing visions of the world...
  - Learning about ecovillages thanks to our knowledge and experience.
  - And about other interesting subjects, thanks to our library, but unfortunately the books are almost all in French ;)
  
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  ❖ We cannot offer ❖
  
  If you're looking for being with a French family all the time, like an immersion in a French family life, always cooking together, spending every evenings and days off together, etc. That's not the right place for you. Here live several families who also need their time just by themselves. We are now sharing the house together and with the volunteers but we cannot be always with people : we need to be alone sometimes (it's maybe because we have children and because we have a looooot of things to do for now - the beginning of the project). Just to be clear about this expectation we cannot meet.
  
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  Please do not contact us here if you're interested in joining as a resident. The volunteer status and "maybe future resident" process isn't the same. If you want to join us permanently, I'm sure you'll find our website ;)

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  Projects involving children

  This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

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  Help

  ➜ We provide everything for safety : safety shoes, safety glasses, gloves, earplugs, masks, old t-shirts for painting or dirty stuff...
  
  ❖ What's on the menu at the moment ❖
  🏠 We are at the beginning of building 8 wooden houses with Gaëtan, a carpenter who lives in the ecovillage. He needs some help ! So, there this, which is the main thing, and around this, there's also:
  - Cut and store the firewood for next winter !
  - Create a parking lot
  - Dig all the trenches for water/electricity...
  -...
  
  And daily tasks are basically:
  - Taking care of the chickens (feeding them and opening the chicken coop)
  - Cooking for the volunteers,
  - Leaving a clean and tidy kitchen after meals,...
  
  We receive a lot of messages, especially in spring and summer, so I need to be sure you read our profile before contacting us : please copy "montbelarbre ecovillage" in the title of your message.
  
  
  ➜ Our way is giving a lot of freedom for volunteers:
  After two weeks we would usually ask you to have your "creative project", for example going around the place and say : "hey, I have skills to draw something beautiful in your living room, are you okay to buy some paint for me?" or "oh, this tree is so beautiful, can I build some benches to put around it?". Someone made a furniture to hold all the spices jar in the kitchen, another draw the map of the whole place...
  To leave a small piece of you here :)

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  French: Fluent
  Spanish: Beginner

  This host offers a language exchange
  Of course if you want to speak French it's a good place to come ;) Some of us would like to improve our Spanish.
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  Accommodation

  ❖ Accommodation ❖
  In the volunteers house, 5 bunk beds, with showers and compost toilets.
  If you prefer to have your own space... Well, please bring your tent :)
  
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  ❖ Food ❖
  ➜ Organic only. It's important for us :)
  ➜ Vegetarian
  ➜ We provide vegetables, fruits, eggs, legumes (lentils, chickpeas...), bread, rice/pasta/couscous, soy sauce, spices, tomato sauce, coconut cream, butter... Things for simple menus.
  ➜ But we cannot provide things as cheese, alcohol, coffee, chocolate, peanut/almond butter, or stuff like that! If you need it, there's a small supermarket not so far, we can lend a bicycle :)
  Just so you know, we are not vegan nor vegetarian, so we sometimes cook meat for ourselves. Just saying, in case it's a problem for you.
  
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  ❖ Ecological products ❖
  Please bring ecological soap, schampoo, toothpaste, deodorant... That's important for us also. We have a "less and less plastic waste" and "buy organic/local" policy here.
  We provide the washing machine liquid.

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  What else ...

  ❖ There's no phone reception here. We put WiFi 4 hours per day, during time off (morning, noon, end of afternoon). If you need more, you'll need to go 5 mn walk from the main house :)
  
  ❖ To come here by public transport : from Toulouse (or Carcassonne) : take a 1h train to Pamiers (or Limoux) and then a 45mn bus.
  The stations we can come and pick you up from are Aigues-Vives or Chalabre.
  Hitchhiking is also very common in this area, a lot of volunteers have managed to reach the ecovillage this way :)

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Space for parking camper vans

  This host can provide space for campervans.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  Hours expected

  5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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