Portugal
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Located a few km from the beaches of Zambujeira do Mar in Alentejo, SW Portugal, we are Jason and Isabel, a Swiss/English couple with a young family living on a beautiful, off-grid homestead of 5.7ha. We're looking for help with our project to enlarge our permaculture garden, work on our Food Forest and live self sustainably in harmony with our land. We share household tasks like cooking and gardening / permaculture, landscaping, tree planting (November onwards and winter / spring ).
Gardening
Building
General Maintenance
Cooking / shopping
Help with Eco project
Help in the house
Animal care
Language practice
Teaching
Between us, we speak English, German and French, and we are passionate about sustainable living. The land is beautiful and relatively untouched - lots to do and lots of satisfaction from learning new skills and seeing real progress made! We mainly work in the garden, renovate and build new things. The work is very diverse and you can learn a lot about the different tasks and challenges of daily life off grid. We are also keen surfers with a beautiful, uncrowded beach just a 5 min bike ride away.
Its been 3 years since we went Off Grid and our workaways have been there every step of the way, helping us to kick start our dream to live sustainably and self-sufficiently on our own land. We are two years into the project and, with a baby, a five-year old, three dogs and three cats on the team, there is lots happening and plenty to do. The big summer 2020 projects on the land that we are working on is setting up more garden beds, some Hügelbeds, create new compost piles, tend to the garden, clear more land and make terraces in the food forest and climbing frames for our plants. Lots to do :)
Our children are at home with us and we have been on a beautiful unschooling journey with our 5.5 year old for the last few years. Our son speaks English and Swiss German, understands German. If you speak Portuguese we would be very happy for you to speak Portuguese to him, so he can practice with you. Our younger son was born in March 2019 and is at the moment a highly spirited 1 year old. Crawling, learning about life and smiling at everyone.
We are looking for positive and motivated people who have a passion for nature and off grid living and like children. If you are into permaculture and love trees as much as we do, we would be happy to host you. Otherwise no special skills/experience necessary, but you should enjoy working hard with your hands and enjoy hanging out with children.
A daily (vegetarian or vegan ) lunch is provided from Mon-Fri. On some weekends we also invite you to join us for pizza from our clay wood fired pizza oven :)
For volunteers staying in our accommodation, we ask for 20 hours per week / 4 hours per day.
For volunteers staying in their own camper van, we ask for 15 hours per week / 3 hours per day.
english, german, french
For accommodation, we have our lovely horsebox/camper bus 'Glesni' with a cosy bed, kitchen, compost toilet and (cold) running water. Here you can prepare your own (self catered) breakfast and evening meals. We also have freecamping space for guests in their own camper van.
Stunning beaches and cliff walks all within walking distance. Surfing/bodyboarding - we can provide surfboards if needed. And we currently one bike which can be used. There is a regular bus service from Zambujeira to local towns and a daily service to Lisbon. But if you would come with your own car, it will give you much more independence.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
More than two
3-4 hours a day, 5 days a week
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