Experience the off grid farm life in Emgwenya, South Africa

Detalles

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  Descripción

  The Farm is a family's journey towards self reliance, responding to the challenges of the current economics as well as climate change.
  Guided by permaculture, the farm is in the blood sweat and tears phase of early development and needs help in setting up infrastructure to support self reliance. The farm has a diverse range of tasks needs and very specific skills for a sustained period of time.
  
  If you are a Workawayer who is
  
  - able to lead natural building projects, we have an abundance of natural building materials and are open to people able to facilitate educating others on this vital self reliance skill
  
  - willing to put in muscle work into breaking new ground as we begin growing a food forest from the soil up; composting, tree planting guild nurturing from early start phase
  
  - inclined to stay for a full season, which ever season you prefer; Winter has warm work days, cold nights and very dry with no rain. Good for building projects, we do controlled burns to create firebreaks from wild fires, forest clean up & reforesting and water conservation.
  Spring is food garden nurturing, tree planting, food forest activation etc,
  Summer is water water water capture & storing, strategic crop minding, harvesting and storage of returns etc,
  Autumn is cooler summer days with occasional rain and tying up the years projects getting ready for shut down of growth period.
  
  - able to teach a self reliance skill or craft like basket weaving, anything that you know works and we are likely to benefit from learning it, and willing to teach us
  
  - willing to do single projects for extended periods with another volunteer, like perimeter fencing, repair and maintenance on existing developments or wood collection for household fires
  
  - a teacher and has experience or skills to contribute to homeschooling our 10 year old
  
  - a musician, dancer, artist, or has experience in long term autonomous community living or can teach cultural self reliance of antiquity
  
  These characteristics will influence whether you would be a good match for us in an effort to narrow down the important stuff to manage expectations.
  
  We are in a period of hard work to achieve what needs to be done on this land to restore it to a natural cycle of growth. We have a fast growing alien forest turning the savannah into a desert with no food for the natural wildlife where it takes control and this needs constant and strategic work. This is just one ongoing project with others that are as important and often more urgent, specifically practicing self reliance when we don't have this kind of living experience. We are alert to the broader global influences and how prepared we are for extreme climate events.
  Our trajectory is not where it should be.
  
  We have a lot of potential for revenue return on the abundance of natural resources and a strong desire to practice village governance and learn to live in community. If this is what you are interested in doing as a volunteer, send us a message.

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  Tipos de ayuda y oportunidades de aprendizaje

  Proyectos artísticos

  Práctica de idiomas

  Ayuda en proyectos ecológicos

  Compañía para ancianos

  Enseñanza

  Jardinería

  Construcción y bricolaje

  Cuidado de animales

  Ayuda en una granja

  Cuidado de niños y juegos creativos

  Cocinar para toda la familia

  Ayuda doméstica

  Hostelería/turismo

  Mantenimiento general
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  Objetivos de sostenibilidad de las NU que intenta conseguir este anfitrión

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  ¿Que es esto?
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  Intercambio cultural y oportunidades de aprendizaje

  Permaculture is the way to save planet Earth as a home for peaceful and productive living. This calls for meeting goals that support outcomes we can be proud of. We cannot do it alone. We have a responsibility to preserve the natural habitat of the local fauna and flora. The benefit we offer will be the experience of the beauty of this part of the world. Nature is abundant here, but it is in a state of decay due to human impact. If you want to join our cause, you can enjoy the return of nature in all it's glory. We embrace African culture and tradition and look to impliment local innovation and tradition where needed.

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  Proyectos con niños

  En este proyecto podría haber niños. Para obtener más información, consulta nuestras directrices y consejos aquí.

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  Ayuda

  Following the guiding ethics of permaculture, we are expanding our development of self-reliance to zones 2 and 3. Orchard development, reforesting, water capture and distribution, shelter for the community, and strategic crop guilding
  Our immediate objectives for 2024 include activities central to repair and maintenance for the first six months.
  From February to July, the priority is fire breaks and doing controlled burns before the wildfires blow through. We have a system that works, and we are safe provided these tasks have been done.

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  Idiomas

  Idiomas hablados
  Inglés: Fluido
  Afrikaans: Intermedio

  Este anfitrión ofrece intercambio de idiomas
  I am learning isiZulu on Duolingo with enthusiasm
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  Alojamiento

  tipi - 6meters wide inside, double or single beds, minimalist. Fully immersive nature experience up above the clouds.
  
  Three meals a day is what we can offer that is plant-based. We don't provide meat meals because we don't have the livestock to sustain supply. We do not have any food-type indoctrination. We eat what we feel is best for us and respect your choices. Plant-based is universal. Please provide any special food needs you have and be prepared to get your own sustainable supply of any unusual or hard-to-find products. We are more than happy to assist in finding quality products locally.
  Breakfast would be a cereal (oats, sorghum, maize meal) or bread (baked at home, or locally bought at the supermarket). Beans, lentils and whole grains make up our staples for main meals. We have a variety of herbs and vegetables in the garden year round and can increase yields for more people, and exponentially with volunteers that help to work the food production on the farm. There are a number of fruiting trees providing abundant fruit from November to February, including pears, prickly pears, grapes, loquats, plums, tangerines, to name a few.
  Food production and growth is fundamental to the farm mission and is a priority objective and volunteers will have opportunity to increase growth of food if that is their passion and even to take to market for a commission. Economic opportunities are a part of the farm development plan so that for the hours they work, they get food and lodging, as well as opportunity to generate income within the local community.

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  Algo más...

  Local climbing mecca; this area is full of hiking trails, mountain biking trails, fishing, and immersive nature; fish eagles are among the many varieties of big birds; and birdwatching is a big thing for people here. Dog-friendly accommodation all around us, close access to the lowlands, the animal kingdom of Kruger National Park, the east coast of South Africa, Swaziland is very close, as is Mozambique. Mpumalanga is a lush and beautiful part of South Africa, not yet densely populated. Nelspruit is the nearest city for official travel businesses and Johannesburg and Pretoria is only 260km west. The weather is more temperate than in the lowveld, and winters are enjoyably cool and the summers are hot with enjoyable thunderstorms and summer rain. In Winter our highest priority work includes controlled burns and fire breaks to avoid the damage of typical seasonal runnaway fires.
  We hope to include livestock in our expansion of self-reliance, but hope we can find volunteers eager to support in horse care, poultry and or aquaponics..

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  Un poco más de información

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    Acceso a Internet

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    Acceso a Internet limitado

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    Tenemos animales

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    Somos fumadores

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    Puede alojar familias

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  Puede acoger a nómadas digitales

  Connection through mobile networks are either very good or down depending on weather,batter theft from towers or service failure however, due to the N4 highway running directly past our town there is has seldom been a time when there is zero network On the farm we have an LTE network and are reliably connected consistant with very few interuptions. We are off grid and have to manage our power so we turn it off and rely on mobile network coverage between sunset and sunrise. With a power supply, our connection can remain 24/7 and data package can be increased should you want to pay for more bandwidth than what we have. The speed varies, text incl email is 100% reliable with even the feintest signal, sometime we get a download speed of 10 mb/s, but can rely on about 3mb/s on avg and stream music all day every day that we have enough sun for the solar system to run the speakers. South Africa's infrustructure is in decay but we are off grid and find off grid solutions. Star link is available in eSwatini, a very short distance away from here and future supply might improve on a global level for the southern hemisphere.

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  Espacio para aparcar autocaravanas

  Theres space you can park with vehicle access, but not developed for this purpose. It is done by visitors who have assessed the risks for themselves and were happy for extended periods before

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  Podría aceptar mascotas

  With reservation. We have a hand-reared bird that we don't want to cage to protect from a volunteer's dog or cat that cannot resist temptation. We are animal lovers and welcome your animal companion, should we agree on the particular animal you bring with you. We want to get horses and have other livestock when the moment presents, and the system can manage it.

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  ¿Cuántos voluntarios puedes hospedar?

  Más de dos

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  Horas esperadas

  4 hours per day Mon - Wednesday with social team project for 4 hours on Thursdays and Fridays

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