Alisa Louise

Austria
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Travel information
I am currently
Travelling
My next destination:
Madagascar - from Sep 2025 until Dec 2025
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Description
I'm Alisa, 19 years old, half Austrian, half Japanese and live in beautiful Graz, Styria in eastern Austria for now. As a deeply curious and spiritual soul I'm into all things nature, connecting with spirit, self-development, holistic health and healing, yoga, ... I especially feel at peace in high mountains (hiking is my huge passion) and at the sea. It lights up my heart to cook, bake (like sourdough bread!) and learn about and be involved in living self-sufficiently.

My passion for the menstrual cycle, for womanhood, for connection to and knowledge about your own body and for female empowerment led me to be a doula and a midwifery student. I aspire to accompany women holistically at and around (home) births.

I strongly believe health is so much more than what western medicine portrays, that the health of our mother earth is inseparable from that of humans and animals. I’m looking to learn so much more about healing through plants and other practices.

My values also contain expressing and letting your energy flow through movement, and one of my favourite ways has become ballroom dancing (and salsa, bachata, tango etc.).

I’m infinitely grateful to have already been able to be a WWOOFer and an intern at inspiring places in Japan, Italy and Austria for several months or weeks at one time and can say I’m used to living simply and in communities. I also got some experience working with children and absolutely love it. I can’t wait for my next adventures in South Africa to begin!
Interests
Events & social
Charity work
Farming
Self development
Vegetarian or vegan
Sustainability
Culture
Languages
Books
Gardening
Cooking & food
Beach
Mountain
Dancing
Yoga / Wellness
Camping
Nature
Outdoor activities
Hiking
Cycling
Adventure sports
Languages
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Japanese: Intermediate
Italian: Beginner
More details about my language interests
I loooooove supporting people with languages, especially German of course, and I'm always into having conversations also in my other three languages :)
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Skills and knowledge I'd like to share or learn
I'm interested in:
Teaching
Gardening
Eco Projects
Charity Work
Some knowledge of:
Life at a Farmstay
Babysitting and creative play
Helping around the house
Hospitality/Tourism
Languages
Able to teach about:
Creating/ Cooking family meals
More details about your skills
I interned for two months at an organic farm in Japan where I learned to take care of chickens, goats and pigs and many plants, to live partly self-sufficiently and maintain a circular economy. I also supervised children at “farm stays”, educational summer camps, for several weeks, and generally love working with children. As a WWOOFer in the mountains of northern Italy, in Sardinia and in Austria (for 6 weeks in total), I gained more experience in living in a community, gardening, processing plants etc.

At home, I bake sourdough bread weekly and I’m not an expert yet, but would love to share my experience of that and of everything else I bake and cook.

Other work experience of mine contains fundraising for NGOs where I could demonstrate my skills of openly, assertively and energetically connecting with a broad variety of people. I also worked in a restaurant part-time for a year and in the office. As I graduated from a business high school in 2024, I hold some skills of economical stuff and working with digital programs like MS Office. I’m quite good at and really love organizing activities and people, am very ambitious when I set certain goals, have led teams successfully at diverse competitions, but at the same time, consider myself flexible to adjust to whatever life throws at me.

I speak German, English and some Japanese (which I’m really not fluent at but intermediate) with my family and am competent at and passionate about teaching, proofreading and helping people to improve their German (writing and in general). I volunteered at a language cafe where immigrants practiced German. To a certain level, I can and would be very happy to also help out with English and Japanese, of course, and I love sharing about the cultures of Austria and Japan :)

As a midwifery student, I’m used to supporting women and families in vulnerable, intimate, sometimes very challenging and intense situations and to working long shifts at all kinds of times in my internships. I can say it has let me grow a lot and amplified traits like empathy and being truly non-judgmental.
Lately, I completed training as a doula. It equipped me with more skills to be there for (expectant) mothers and deepened my (spiritual) understanding of womanhood, motherhood and the significance of true sisterhood. I care deeply about these topics, the menstrual cycle and the connection they create with our own bodies. I had the opportunity to share this through a speech on live TV, hoping to encourage more awareness, and this is what I love to do in my everyday life, too.
Right now, I’m helping out a family with two children during the last weeks of pregnancy in Sardinia.
Age
20
Some more information
- Smoker
- Driver's licence
- Allergies
  no
- Special dietary requirements

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22 Dec 2025

Left by Workawayer () for host (Share your English skills or ...)

No words can describe how incredible my three months in Moramanga were, how much I've experienced and learnt.

I stayed for the first trimester, from September to December. Until the beginning of November, you can probably expect drier and not too hot weather. Then, the rainy and very hot season starts, which can get in the way of some full-day… read more trips, so use your time before that :) Also, the humidity is quite extreme. I even got to experience a cyclone and its consequences... The mosquitoes are really not as bad as I had feared.
There's a school holiday of one weeks at the end of October, where we had a fun team building event with the colleagues for one day. For some days, I travelled to Tamatave and Canal de Pangalanes (East Coast) with another volunteer and our Malagasy friend - Tamatave isn't worth it but our place at the Canal was just one of the most secluded and magnificent places I've ever witnessed.
Fafah was so helpful when it came to organising my trip to the beautiful Andasibe national park (I went with other volunteers and a Malagasy friend) and she took us to another nature reserve where we saw so many different chameleons and other species.

The accommodation was spacious and good. The only drawbacks are that the high humidity leads to some mold on the cupboard, the water gets cut sometimes (maybe twice a week on average or so) and power cuts occur almost daily, at least when there's heavy rain (which we have every day in the rainy season) - but none of that bothered me.

Fafah has become my friend, role model and mentor. Although she was even busier than she usually is, we enjoyed a few dance sessions and insightful conversations together and she's ALWAYS there when you need something. She's such an obviously competent, confident teacher and observing her classes was hugely inspiring. She also took me on a traditional family event which was so unique.
I'm forever grateful for a connection Fafah made for me: As I study midwifery, I asked if she knew someone so I could volunteer in the field, and I got to intern regularly in her obstetric surgeon friend's littlle private clinic. These experiences were just invaluable.

The lunch we've had together on weekdays was so delicious! I love eating rice every day, seriously.

As for the Academy: The atmosphere is positive in general and the kids and teenagers are good-hearted. I taught everything from Pre-K (3 years olds) to Grade 8 + the English Club, so I had around 320 students out of the 415... The learning curve was STEEP and I had my up's and down's - but way more up's. Teaching was so rewarding and mostly fun, I loved using my creativity, empathy and love for planning and language. It was also frustrating at times when my voice was already hoarse because of a cold and then, tweens and teens weren't as respectful as the younger kids - but still far more respectful than people that age in industrialised countries - when it came to listening attentively, but at the same time, I know having a very full schedule and huge class sizes played a big role in this. You improve at class management, so don't worry. I hadn't taught before and English isn't my first language and I managed well. There are many materials from former volunteers you can utilise, the library, resources online, ...
A few months ago, the school started offering German classes, and I was extremely happy I was able to make some memories teaching my native language a bit.
I really can't mention all the little heartwarming gifts I received from students and friends, invitations from colleagues that turned friends, even to their baptism and cozy birthday party for example. The farewell party with the staff members and the farewell dinner with Fafah and her family. Playing with Brad, her lively five-year-old, was very nice, too.

On the last day before the Christmas holidays, there was the school's biggest yearly event, the Christmas show. All grades and the staff prepare their own performance and I was a part of the Pre-K and the staff dance. I can really recommend being around at that time of year!

I came to love Madagascar, teaching, my Malagasy friends that I'll stay in touch with, the food, and much more. I got to see so much more than the school.

It was challenging... and one of the best decisions of my life.

(Excellent)

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