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 reforest the land, create a Food Forest and live self sustainably in harmony with our land. We share household tasks and gardening / permaculture, tree planting and are always looking for people interested in teaching and caring for our 5 year old unschooled son and giving us a helping hand with our 8 month old Baby Boy.
Gardening
Building
Babysitting / child care
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 2.5 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 Winter 2019 and Spring 2020 projects on the land that we are currently working on is the design and plantation of a food forest and clearing the land next to our river to enlarge the area of our vegetable garden.
We are also always interested in hosting inspiring people that are keen to spend time with our nearly 5 year old son Evan and would like to do art, music, woodwork, outdoors adventures and many other things with him. Evan is currently at home with us and we have been on a beautiful unschooling journey with him for the last few years. If you are a family that is unschooling, or a teacher that is interested in child led learning / alternative education we are always happy to hear from like minded people. 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 8 month old. Crawling, learning about life and smiling at everyone. Helping us with Baby Sunshine Dylan is just as important and would be highly appreciated.
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) 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.
In the case of families with young kids, we understand that both parents cannot be expected to 'work', so we like to keep things more flexible in terms of working hours and meals provided, to keep a fair balance.
english, german, french
For accommodation, we have our lovely horsebox/camper bus 'Glesni' and two wooden guest cabins, each with bedroom, 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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