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Host rating
80 %
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6
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Details
Description
Located next to Forest National Park in Southwest Uganda.
Come and help us in the coffee plantation or vegetable garden, or help us upgrade our campsite, learn to build traditional round huts from natural and local, materials. Teach our chef some some new recipe.
We produce highland Arabica coffee grown by organic principle. We also welcome tourist and researchers on the Forest Farm. The Farm is owned by Trine and Mikael who are siblings from Denmark.
You will be accomodated in a hut or a tent at our campsite. Our campsite is located just next to the National Park. It is very basic but we do have water closets and hot showers. Two traditional round huts have been made from local materials and more will be constructed, hopefully with your help!
The surroundings are astonishing. The Forest is covering the farm on two sides. Hills covered in different shades of green and the contours of Mount Rwenzori is the view from the others.
We reside in real rural Uganda. Our neighbours are friendly and welcoming. It is safe to explore the local area just follow the foot paths through the villages, passing houses and gardens scattered in the hills. You will be met with love, lafter, and cheering and do not worry; if you get lost you will always be taken back by the children. Electricity is not common but we have a solar system where you can charge your phone, tablet, etc.
We have started and funded a project where our fellow farmers cultivate coffee by permaculture principles like we do. The aim of the project is to help protect National Park, with a forested buffer zone between the forest and the villages that can provide villagers income.
Why do I do this?
in 2007 I was doing research while doing a Master in biology. The research was in Uganda concerning problems around the National Parks arriving from raiding Park animals and villagers trying to protect their harvest. Results pointed to use land near the park for unpalatable income crops or income generating activities like tourisme. With this knowledge in mind I decided to make an agro-forestry consisting mostly of coffee and work to find ways to export the coffee berries to Europe. I started the plantation in order to demonstrate for the neighbouring farmers how to change their land into better use and to give them knowledge about permaculture and organic cultivation.
Types of help and learning opportunities
Gardening
DIY and building projects
General Maintenance
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Farmstay help
Help with Eco Projects
Animal Care
Hospitality/Tourism
Language practice
UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
As volunteer at my place you will get very close to local people in a third world country. You will get to understand the challenges and joys they have in their everyday life. This is essential to understand the underlying mechanisms of poverty. You have the feeling of stepping back a hundred year and live our history which also helps you understand the fights our ancestors had to take. But also a sight of what we lost on our way to industrial and "e" societies. One thing I keep thinking again and again when I am there is how grateful I am that I have been able to go to school. When you find yourself explaining why the moon grows full and small and how the stars are very distant sons, to grown up people. You realize how much you know, and how much it is worth. You will grow in a number of ways, when being put in a situation so different than what you are used to.
Help
Come and join us as volunteer
For the time being we are harvesting. We could really need some help with that. We will also in November/December need help with building a new terrace from wood and thatched with banana fibers. Also we will be making chairs and other furniture using wood from the farm. At all time you are welcome to help us maintain terraces, and hiking tracks, plant flowers, work in our vegetable garden, construct hideouts, and a yoga platform, or help taking care of our animals. From September to December and March/April we pick coffee.
We also welcome you if you need a biology field work study. We like to know how biodiverse Forest Farm is! We can also arrange for you to help in the local school. And you are welcome to contact us for any idea of your own!
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Accommodation
hut or tent with bedding
As volunteer you will be served breakfast lunch and supper. Breakfast will be bread or porridge, You will eat lunch with our workers, this consist of beans and porcho. For supper you will have a vegetarian dish prepared by our staff.
What else ...
Activities and what to do
Enjoy the nature and the National Park. Take a hike along the edge of the National Park, monkeys are common, and you can also encounter chimpanzees and seldomly a Mountain Gorilla. You can also take a guided hike inside the Park with a ranger from Uganda Wildlife Authority. Gorilla trekking where you meet habituated groups of Mountain Gorillas is available at the Park entrance not far away. We can also arrange weekend trips to the Nearby Savannah National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park.
You can also walk along the Park at night and you will discover a complete different wildlife. If you do not like to do this on your own our staff can escort you. The sound from the Park will blow you off your feet. there are no dangerous animals but you might encounter, pottoes, bushbabies, bats, owls, and if lucky you might even spot rare African Golden cat . . .
In afternoons you can go to the local primary school and play soccer with the boys or softball with the girls. You can also compete with our staff in wedding or shooting with local bow and arrow.
Go on a village walk. You come across gardens with different vegetable, banana-, tea-, and coffee plantations. Talk to our staff and they can arrange for you to meet the local healer, discover local alcohol brewing, and have a taste of local specialities.
You can also go to the nearest Batwa settlement (indigenous people of the forest), for the ultimate Batwa experience. Batwa also called Pygmies are the oldest tribe in the world. That lived as hunters and gatherers inside the Forest until 1968 when they were evicted. You will experience their culture; for example making fire, cooking, mock hunting techniques, trees and schrubs used in wéveryday life, how they live today, and off course their traditional dancing.
Or you can pay a visit to the hospital. The hospital is of very good standard in Uganda and the staff are happy to give you a guided tour. Most patients are there because of pregnancies and birth, malnutrition, and HIV/Aids. When women are admitted with malnourished children they are being taught how to grow and cook nutritional food. The tour is free but you are welcome to contribute
Go Birding. This Forest have more bird species per square kilometre than anywhere else in the world! Hide yourself in our forested area, and enjoy the birdlife.
Pay a visit to the local orphanage. You will be greeted with traditional dancing. And if you like to support the children you can buy their handicrafts.
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
5 hours a day, 5 days a week
Feedback (6)
Yes, the permanent staff speaks limited or no English
Yes, you won't be proactively informed or offered coffee
Yes, this is not the "family-style" European farm. But why should it be? Are you expecting things to be your way?
BUT
Yes, it is an amazingly… read more
thank you! It was great staying and working with you. We stayed for 7 days, in March 2020, first slept in a tent, then moved to a hut due to the rain (mostly during the night). The nature is so great, with different monkeys stopping by during day and night, stunning birds. We worked for 5-6 hours a day.. mostly pruning… read more
Feedback
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Accuracy of profile:
(4.3)
Cultural exchange:
(3.7)
Communication:
(3.7)
Yes, the permanent staff speaks limited or no English
Yes, you won't be proactively informed or offered coffee
Yes, this is not the "family-style" European farm. But why should it be? Are you expecting things to be your way?
BUT
Yes, it is an amazingly… read more
thank you! It was great staying and working with you. We stayed for 7 days, in March 2020, first slept in a tent, then moved to a hut due to the rain (mostly during the night). The nature is so great, with different monkeys stopping by during day and night, stunning birds. We worked for 5-6 hours a day.. mostly pruning… read more
If you like nature and enjoy basic life, this is a place to be and help! looking out of my local hut I saw four different types of monkeys eating and playing in the trees.… read more
Unfortunately the picking saison was over, but we prepared the coffee plants for the next saison and removed all the small branches. We worked 5 hours a day and had breakfast (porridge), lunch… read more
