Collective learning at a non-profit queer feminist community in Wiesenburg, Germany

Details

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  Description

  We are Anna and Elise, a couple who met in Budapest, where we ran a queer ecofeminist community park. Recently moved to Berlin and just bought an old Inn and farmhouse with 6000m2 of land, that we would like to turn into an organising space for activists, as part of our own activism. The house used to be the main point of the village life, with a dancehall and a pub. We are interested in offering once again a community space for the village, but not a commercial one. We would like to turn the big street facing rooms into community living room and kitchen. And maybe most importantly, we are building a big garden to feed our community. The garden will include hard to find but culturally important herbs of people with a migrational background.
  
  We work along queer, eco-feminist, anti-racist values and our goal with the project is to share our privileged access to land and private property, as well as to create a space for organising, especially during the current German context. We are trying to put principals into practice during the house renovation works we do as well, from being mindful of the materials we use to collective learning of new skills, are all part of a whole.
  
  We are super excited to get to know the plants and animals who live near us and to make a home for many of them in the big garden. Our aim is to create a place of refuge for the many, not just humans, and to grow food for many species. We would love to host people who are interested in co-learning with us.
  
  The project is very much at its beginning (we bought the place in August 2024) and all is left to do. Often we have people, including many friends, who come to give a hand with the constructions, especially when the weather is good.
  
  Speaking of weather... it is important to note that for now, we have minimal heating. The kitchen and the bedrooms can be heated with wood stoves but it's important though that you are good with some cold.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  Farmstay help
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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 are fairly close to Berlin, and we go at least 2 a week, just to say that you can also easily reach it. We are happy to recommend you places, events, protests, etc.
  
  We have a background in nature conservation, architecture, farming, food and activism. Always happy to dig into those topics with you and excited to hear what you bring. We have an ever growing library on these topics that we are happy to share.
  
  We are particularly looking forward meeting people who are interested in different kinds of crafts.
  
  Plus, both of us are into foraging, plants, fermentation, and would love to exchange recipes, ideas and different cultural approaches to these.

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  Help

  In general we would like to host people who are curious about the project and are down with intersectional feminist values, to exchange with. Fellow queers are particularly welcome :) We would be particularly happy to exchange around organising experiences, non-human centred gardening practices, cooking, fermentation, foraging, nature conservation, etc. These are topics we would be the happiest to share knowledge about and to also learn from you, but we are excited to hear what topics you are interested to bring.
  
  We are super new as a Workaway host and are still figuring it out how it would work for us. We can imagine hosting you for a little longer if we get along once here, but also open to shorter stays.
  
  Sometimes we are super social and have a lot of people over, but other times we are just happy to rest after long days of work, when we don't have too much energy for social interactions. On most nights though we would be happy to share meals and cook together. We can imagine hosting several workawayers at the same time, creating a lively atmosphere, learning from each others.
  
  Currently we are mostly helping on making the house more welcoming and doing all sorts of tasks for the upcoming summer, so we could host you all more comfortably.
  
  We would be mainly happy for help with setting up the garden (if this is not for you, please still contact us and maybe you can help with general upkeep). We are creating new garden beds, a greenhouse, compost, plant seedlings, plant them out, mulching, etc.
  
  It's not important that you have previous gardening experience, we would be happy to teach you what we know, but ideally we would love to have knowledge exchanges.
  
  In addition, it's important for us that we all do our fair share of house tasks, like cleaning common areas, taking out the compost toilet, doing the dishes, cooking, etc.

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  Languages spoken

  English: Fluent
  French: Fluent
  Hungarian: Fluent
  German: Intermediate

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  Accommodation

  We have a large barn, 6000m2 land and a 400m2 house, with 2 floors, in the middle of a small village, near forests and fields.
  
  The main house:
  On the first floor we have the future (not yet usable) street facing community living-room and community kitchen areas, a small living room that we can not use during the winter lack of heating, our heated bedroom, a bathroom with compost toilet and hot shower (YESSS) and a semi-warm, semi-private kitchen to be, that we are currently renovating but can be still used :)
  On the second floor we have already 3 bedrooms that can be used and heated and a few more will be renovated soon.
  
  In the winter, we can only offer shared rooms, because it's hard and very wood demanding to heat up many rooms. The bedrooms are very minimalistic though for now, with not much in it, but we can together look for ways of making it quickly cosier :)
  
  Foodwise:
  
  We love to eat and cook, and Anna had an unofficial restaurant for a bit in Budapest. We eat fully vegan and buy mostly organic ingredients that are not coming from too far. We imagine cooking together or taking turns at it.

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  What else ...

  The nearest train station is a 10 min bike ride away. From there, the train takes you to Berlin in 1h-1h.20 depending on where you get off. It runs every hour. Other then that, there are sometimes things happening in the nearby villages, but not the busiest probably during the winter. Wiesenburg, a small city with shops and a castle is a 15 min bike ride away.
  
  We live near forests, where you can take long walks, look for mushrooms and listen to birds.
  
  Elise works from home 3 days and 2 from Berlin, Anna is currently fully focusing on renovating the house and goes to Berlin a day or two a week to go to protests, meet friends etc.

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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

  We have 6000m2 land, with some place where a camper could be parked.

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  Can possibly accept pets

  We have a dog a cat and we can imagine hosting more animals :)

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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