Help us create a niche of biodiversity and build our eco-sustainable farm, Araku Valley, India

Detalles

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  Descripción

  Professionally, Rajeev is a Cinematographer with a specialisation in Motion Picture Photography from Film and Television Institute of India. I, Pratiksha is an Environmentalist, completed my Master in Urban Management from Technical University of Berlin. We both likes to balance our lifestyle with activities like gardening, community projects, and environment education projects., Rajeev loves traveling, socialising and see life with a pinch of colour format while I love to balance my life with cooking, dusting my hands and mind with animals and plants.
  
  As we were evolving and understanding ourselves more, we came to a point that we would like to shift to a rural lifestyle where we would be happy to unlearn-to- learn and work together with the community with a proper business model. We got inspired by reading, watching, travelling and meeting many like-minded people that helped us to understand how sustainable tribals are, how tribal products are, what role they play in the society and what role we can play by bringing sustainable investment in the scenario. This thought grew more stronger when we shifted to our farm Araku and, actually felt the need to do something with them and how we can bring more value add to any tribal products and the entire system.
  
  Many of our friends asked us, why Araku? Where is it? For us also, we are also exploring and understanding the core value of this area where very less has been explored and very much to see in this tribal region which is full of vast biodiversity. The area comes under tribal belt in Eastern Ghats of India where one can find Primitive Tribal Groups as well.
  
  While shuffling around with our own quest, it’s was not a simple decision to leave the utter comfort urban lifestyle. In the year 2020 when we were about the shift in the month of March, the entire world came into standstill and announced as complete shutdown due to COVID. Rajeev came to Araku in January to start some work at our farm while I was in Pune, staying poles apart without any proper timeline when we going to meet next. We wondered like us, so many has their untold stories to be heard.
  By May, 2020 after many attempts, we finally got our travel pass to transport our entire house along with 5 cats. Which was another nightmare to travel cross 3 states within 48 hours with a distance of 1300 kms.
  
  Initially, it was very tough for both of us to break that bubble and to be part of their system. We started our journey living in a tent for 8 months with all animals in and around (3 dogs, 5 cats, 50 chickens and 6 ducks). Our present house is a mud house, which we have built during that time with the help of locals and local materials. There were only us who was handling these animals. Waking up every day around 5:30 am, preparing their food, feeding them, cleaning the area was somewhat we were not so prepared so early. I (Pratiksha) was doing little kitchen gardening in Pune, which was fancy to work on but when the entire dimension changes, it becomes an art to yourself to proof it right.
  
  We have built our house with mud because we wanted to be part of them, we wanted them to involve with us and we believe that to be part of their community we must adapt some of their characters, their architecture, their food habits, art and culture. We are trying to make our farm as an eco-sustainable farm, where we are using mud motar to build other infrastructures as well. We are separating plastics and wet waste; wherein wet waste goes to our farm animals. We are doing soil rejuvenation through introducing green manuring, chop-and-drop method, natural pesticide treatments like Neem oil, garlic, chilli spray on our crops and flowers, followed by trenching to control water table, and making food forest.
  
  There were times when we felt like going back to the city, as so many issues we have faced, trust issues, labour issues, financial, time, emotional, physical, mental, weather as well.... One thing we have learnt that it’s always good to loosen up yourself, to learn from them because what we read in our books and what we experience is completely two different tales of a same coin.

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  Tipos de ayuda y oportunidades de aprendizaje

  Proyectos artísticos

  Ayuda en proyectos ecológicos

  Jardinería

  Construcción y bricolaje

  Cuidado de animales

  Ayuda en una granja

  Ayuda informática
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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

  We are trying to create and develop eco-friendly homestays in around Araku Valley. We want to preserve the beauty of nature and conserve- preserve traditional values of the area which is getting extinct day by day due to interference of many external factors such as construction of concrete houses, bringing fertilizers etc.
  I truly believe they will get many exposure to explore in the Eastern Ghats in terms of art and culture, architectural values, their traditions, native species of this area (flora-fauna), Tribal Groups, their behavior, farming, vegetation, etc.

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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

  We welcome like-minded people who would help us in creating a niche of biodiversity where we can share our ideas either its related to baking, cooking, eco-constructions, plantations, training coffee farmers.

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  Idiomas hablados

  Assamese: Fluido
  Inglés: Fluido
  Hindi: Fluido
  Telugu: Fluido
  Oriya: Principiante

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  Alojamiento

  Currently we have tents with mattress and pillow. Mosquitoes are usually not there but still for safety purpose please carry your mosquito repellents, first-aid kit, torch light. Bathrooms are available with hot-water facility. We want volunteers to keep the toilets clean so that it will be convenient for everyone to use it properly. Littering is highly prohibited in our property. We separate our dry and wet waste.
  We provide normal vegetarian food. Sometime community cooking is welcomed preferably keep the kitchen clean and neat. We cannot provide fancy food. It is advisable if they have any preferences, then they can carry their goodies along.

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  Algo más...

  Our farm is around 92kms away from Visakhapatnam city. Araku Valley is located with an altitude of 1000 m above sea level. From Visakhapatnam hourly bus services are available. Journey through train is very scenic, crossing many tunnels.
  
  It has streams, lush green forests, beautiful waterfalls and sprawling coffee plantations. It has beautiful touristic spots such as
  
  • Thatipudi dam watch tower
  • Damuku Viewpoint
  • Borra Caves –naturally formed limestone caves located within the Ananthagiri Hills.
  • Katika Waterfall – Situated near the Borra Caves
  • Galikonda View point – A scenic hilltop
  • Many weekly tribal markets
  
  Apart from that, Odisha is just half an hour away, where one can visit Padwa Lake, Duduma Waterfalls (1hour journey) and if you go ahead one can visit Chitrakoot Waterfalls, Tirathgarh waterfalls, Kanger Valley National Park in Chhattisgarh.

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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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  Espacio para aparcar autocaravanas

  Este anfitrión puede proporcionar un sitio para autocaravanas.

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  ¿Cuántos voluntarios puedes hospedar?

  Más de dos

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  Horas esperadas

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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