Learn new skills and enjoy moments of relaxation surrounded by nature in Ariège, France

Infos

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  Description

  Welcome to our ecovillage! Where nature thrives and a new community is growing...
  
  We're looking for long-term volunteers (several months) : please do not contact us for less than 2 months !
  
  🔸 Availability : from November !
  
  ⚠️ Please note: We are a non-smoking ecovillage, and we cannot accommodate cats or dogs to protect the local wildlife.
  
  🔹 Who we are
  Hi! I’m Florane, the contact person for this Workaway profile.
  We're a small but growing community of 7 permanent residents, including: Jean-Marc, Gaëtan & Claire, the Flos (Florane & Florian) and their two daughters, Gaïa (7) and Yin (2) ...plus a dozen happy chickens and an abundance of wild animals living peacefully around us.
  
  Our place is nestled in 45 hectares of lush forests and open meadows in southwest France. From our hill, you can spot the Pyrenees, and nearby there's a large pond full of frogs and ducks.
  
  🔻 The Project
  We purchased the land in spring 2023, and we’re building an ecovillage from the ground up. It’s an exciting time : everything is in motion!
  
  Our 3 Main Goals:
  🏘 Create a living area:
  Several families are joining! We're currently renovating houses and building 8 eco-friendly wooden homes (thanks to Gaëtan, our resident carpenter), for residents!
  🌱 Build a collective permaculture farm:
  In time, we’ll grow vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, algae, nuts, honey — and maybe produce cheese too. The dream is to become resilient and feed the ecovillage and local villages.
  🎓 Offer a space for learning and sharing !
  
  💧 Why we host volunteers
  We’re still at the very beginning, and every volunteer is a precious part of our story, like a drop of water helping a river come to life. We dream of re-creating the beautiful community spirit we’ve experienced during our own Workaway travels: people from around the world working, laughing, and learning together.
  
  We welcome volunteers who are motivated, enthusiastic, and eager to learn, and who genuinely enjoy being helpful.
  Personal responsibility is very important to us: we appreciate people who notice what needs to be done and take action without being asked, like washing your dishes, emptying the compost toilets before they overflow, or picking up a broom when the floor is messy.
  We also value emotional responsibility : being aware of your feelings and owning your experience. For us, it's important that everyone contributes not just with their hands, but also with a grounded and mindful presence.

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Projets artistiques

  Aide avec des éco-projets

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  Aide dans une ferme

  Baby-sitting et jeux créatifs

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison

  Entretien général

  Aide informatique/internet
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  Centres d’intérêt

  

  Sports d'aventure

  

  Montagne

  

  Camping

  

  Nature

  

  Yoga / bien-être

  

  Danse

  

  Activités en plein air

  

  Randonnée

  

  Cyclisme

  

  Architecture

  

  Animaux

  

  Bricolage / artisanat

  

  Histoire

  

  Soin des plantes

  

  Musique

  

  Art et design

  

  Livres

  

  Photographie

  

  Langues

  

  Jardinage

  

  Cuisine et alimentation

  

  Écriture

  

  Arts du spectacle

  

  Dessin et peinture

  

  Menuiserie

  

  Astronomie

  

  Auto-stop

  

  Dev. durable

  

  Dev. personnel

  

  Ferme
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  Objectifs de développement durable de l’ONU que cet hôte essaie d'atteindre

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  Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  Here you can:
  🍽 Share communal meals and laughter
  🏞 Swim in the nearby lake or river
  🌲 Meditate, dance, walk, or just be in the forest
  📚 Learn about ecovillages, sustainability, and our own journey
  🗣 Have deep (and silly!) conversations under the stars
  
  During our time off, we go to the lake to swim, we rockclimb, we hike... Or just enjoying free time in such an amazing nature!

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  Projets impliquant des enfants

  Ce projet peut impliquer des enfants. Pour en savoir plus, consultez nos directives et conseils ici.

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  Aide

  We have hosted more than 100 workawayers :)
  And we'd like to change a little now : we'd like to host people for several months - at least more than 1 month each time, so that we can know each other better, and also for the volunteer who's staying to really feel at home.
  
  We are doing a lot of different things. We're improving the place to turn it into a place where people can live and feel good. This is very wide, and also you could have an amazing idea we didn't have!
  
  I know that's not very accurate. Please contact us and we'll see together how we can both help each other :)
  
  Your help would only be for private home/garden (for permanent residents of the ecovillage), not in any spaces related to paying event guests.
  
  For now, we don't need help in the garden as it... Doesn't exist yet !
  
  Daily tasks are basically:
  🍽 Cooking for the volunteers,
  🧹 Leaving a clean and tidy kitchen after meals,
  🪵 Bring some firewood in the house if it's cold,
  🚽 Empty your compost toilets...
  
  We’re looking for motivated, proactive, and emotionally mature volunteers. Please don’t wait for reminders; we value initiative and shared responsibility.
  
  👷🏼 We provide everything for safety : safety shoes, safety glasses, gloves, earplugs, masks, old t-shirts for painting or dirty stuff...
  
  🎨 Our way is giving a lot of freedom for volunteers:
  After two weeks you can have a "creative project", for example going around the place and say : "hey, I have skills to draw something beautiful in your living room, are you okay to buy some paint for me?" or "oh, this tree is so beautiful, can I build some benches to put around it?". Someone made a furniture to hold all the spices jar in the kitchen, another draw the map of the whole place... To leave a small piece of you here 🥰

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  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Anglais: Courant
  Français: Courant
  Hollandais: Courant
  Espagnol: Débutant

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  This place CAN be a good place if you want to practice French! But please note that we always prefer to include everyone in the conversation (if there's a non French speaker). So it depends a lot on who are the other volunteers!
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  Hébergement

  🛖 Accommodation :
  In the main house, we have 2 bedrooms with two single beds each, and another bedroom with two bunk beds. Compost toilets and shared bathroom with other volunteers.
  
  🥘 Food :
  Organic only. It's important for us ! We provide basic vegetarian food but we don't provide things like coffee, chocolate, peanut butter,... If you need something more, there's a small supermarket not so far, we can lend a bicycle.
  We are not vegan nor vegetarian, so we sometimes cook meat for ourselves : just saying, in case that's a problem for you.
  
  🪥 Ecological products :
  Please bring ecological soap, schampoo, toothpaste, deodorant... That's important for us also. We have a "less and less plastic waste" and "buy organic/local" policy here.
  We provide the washing machine liquid.

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  Autres infos...

  📶 There is no phone reception at the main house. WiFi is available for 4 hours/day during free time. Need more? A 5-minute walk gets you reception.
  
  🚉 How to get here
  From Toulouse: Train to Pamiers (1 hr) → Bus to Aigues-Vives (45 min)
  From Carcassonne: Train to Limoux (1 hr) → Bus to Chalabre (45 min)
  👍 Hitchhiking is common and many volunteers have made it here that way too!
  
  ❗ A few notes
  Phones addicts might struggle here : digital detox is part of the experience!
  Please copy-paste “ecovillage” in your first message title to show you’ve read our profile.
  We do not accept volunteer inquiries from people looking to become residents. If you’re interested in that path, I'm sure you'll find us!

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

  Cet hôte a indiqué qu’il aimait accueillir les digital nomads.

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  Cet hôte a de la place pour les vans.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Plus de 2

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  Mes animaux

Sécurité du site

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