Join our family and learn about sustainable living in Elst, in the flemish Ardenne, Belgium

Infos

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  Description

  Hello!
  Our names are Stein and Thamy. And this is our fourth year of workaway. We allready hosted 32 people from 14 different countries. And we love to have more!
  Together with our little daughter Otte we live in a little village called Elst, in the flemish ardennes (do not confuse with the ardennes in the french speaking part of Belgium). We are located in a beautiful area, with lots of nature to go for walks (or bike! Our regions quite known for a big racing bike competition, de ronde van Vlaanderen).
  
  In september 2021 we bought a little house with a big yard. The house was run down, with no running water or kitchen and a big yard full of nettles and brambles higher then Stein (and he is 1m95!), but we fell in love with the view and the possibilities of one day making a food forest!
  The first few months we emptied the house and the shed, cut down a lot of trees (too old, too high and close to the house or sick), made firewood, put a roof back on the shed and made a playhouse for the little one.
  
  June 2022 we started living in a caravan we put on the property while we worked on the house, we hope to make it livable by next year. We like to do everything as sustainable as possible, we try to build everything with second hand stuff. If second hand is not an option we build as ecological as possible, we even dream to make plaster and earth floor from our own earth. We try to experiment and move self builder boundaries.
  
  A little bit more about us:
  Stein (33) studied architecture and worked as and architect for years, he also was the property and realty manager of the city Kortrijk. Since july 2023 he is full time working on our home, he also works on the sheep farm with his dad. In september he started farmerschool. When he was younger he helped build the house of his parents. You can say he knows a lot about building houses! He has a great passion for bio ecological building and other forms of housing,.. so he's definitely going to try out some techniques over the years at our project. In his spare time he loves to work with wood, spoon carving, making furniture,...
  
  Thamy (32) works for the city of Oudenaarde at the department for after school care for kids but studied as a kindergarten teacher. In her spare time she likes to draw,make music and her more recent hobby crochet and reading. Oh, and loves cooking! She loves to garden and make things with the produce or can them for later in the year. She loves to try out new fermenting techniques like sourdough, kombucha or ginger beer. She hopes that in a few years they can produce a lot more food for themselves in the garden (her big dream is to have a root cellar that looks like a hobbit house).
  
  Otte (almost 5) is a sweet little toddler that is going to school, she is quite shy in the beginning but once she gets to know you a little better she is probably gonna smother you with attention (oh and if it would be your birthday when are here. She can sing happy birthday very cute!). Her favorite part about workaway is when you go on the trampoline with her (or if you are a great desert baker).
  
  The sheep from the farm stay here sometime during the summer too. If you wanna see cute little lambs being born April is the perfect time to stay ;)
  Last year we had chickens, but they sadly all died (thank you mister fox.. ). We would love to take new ones if we had help with making a better chicken coop.
  
  Workawayer Highlights:
  2022: Building the outside kitchen/common meeting area, cleaning the field and sowing grass, planting trees
  2023: Putting fence for the sheep, Buying chickens and making there coop, big veggie garden, foundation work around the house
  2024: Greenhouse, Taking down the roof, making the veggie garden more beautiful (pathways, pumpkin archway) lots of repurposing of materials we already had.
  
  Workaway Goals 2025:
  Improving the vegetable garden (less weeds, more mulch!), repurposing more materials, experiments with our earth and clay.

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Aide avec des éco-projets

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  Aide dans une ferme

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison
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  Centres d’intérêt

  

  Végétarien ou végan

  

  Dev. durable

  

  Ferme

  

  Soin des plantes

  

  Bricolage / artisanat

  

  Musique

  

  Dessin et peinture

  

  Menuiserie

  

  Nature

  

  Danse
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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

  We definitely see WorkAway as learning from one another and broadening our horizon. Learning from other cultures and expanding our friend circle. We really like to get to know you as a person and your story. Getting around the campfire and trying some local beers, playing some games. We love cooking different cuisines but love to bring some local specialities around.
  
  Every workawayer cooks one time. With food we want to try and learn about each others cultures!
  We also like to share music (we have a workawayer playlist since 2024 where everyone shares 3 songs from there country!). We have a guitar for people who like to play ;)
  
  You can surely learn a thing or two about sustainable living with us. We love to let you in to our story with creating our house and garden.
  We are still learning about permaculture and food forestation, but you can definitely learn with us!
  We love to discuss different point of views and experiences.
  In the summer we always partake in some preserving and fermenting activities and would love for you to join them.
  If you like activities with your hands Stein would love to teach you to carve a spoon from fresh wood, Thamy would love to do a paint/drawing evening together.

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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

  Our volunteers help us with whichever project we are helping on when they stay with us. When volunteers stay a longer time we have a more diverse array of tasks for them.
  A stay longer than two weeks provides us the time to finish a project with them.
  
  Stein is renovating our house on his own, while Thamy works full time. We therefore love to have volunteers help with the extra tasks around the house.
  The tasks can vary from helping in the garden (weeding, planting, making a garden bed) to small DIY projects (mud kitchen for Otte, housing new chickens, composting) . The tasks varies from stay to stay.
  
  Ongoing house tasks:
  moving materials, maintaining the garden (pruning, weeding, mowing,..), help with the animals, help with cooking/ doing the dishes..
  
  The last couple of months we finished most of the big construction work (thanks to Stein, friends and professional builders), so now we can focus on the designing part and doing the more creative stuff.
  We love that volunteers can leave something behind of themselves, we already had someone paint a rosette in the outdoor kitchen. We love to incorporate your talents/interest in our project.

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  Langues parlées

  Anglais: Courant
  Hollandais: Courant
  Allemand: Débutant
  Français: Débutant

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  Hébergement

  We provide a big Bell tent with beds for you and the other WorkAwayers to sleep in or a trailer where there is a bedroom for one person. We provide sheets, towels and some spare workingclothes if you need extras.
  
  We have an outdoor kitchen and a shelter for cooking and hanging out. That we will use together.
  We eat mostly vegetarian meals but are open to buy you meat if you prefer that.
  
  We have a washing machine that you are free to use.
  The shower is in the caravan. Our toilet is an outdoor dry toilet behind the kitchen.
  
  During your stay you can use one of our bikes if we don't need them.
  
  We always try to pick you up and bring you back to the trainstation when you arrive. The closest one is Zottegem. Where you can easily go is you come from Brussels.

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  Autres infos...

  The Vlaamse Ardennes are know for their beautiful landscapes. We are surrounded with nature parks, for beautiful walking trips or you can partake on scenic bike rides.
  For sight seeing we have the city of Oudenaarde where you can go to the museum in the townhall, visit the Archeological Roman museum in Velzeke or discover the craft of milling grains in the boembekemolen.
  
  We also have lovely activities certain times of the year, from our local neighbour market in may, to the Beerfest in Oudenaarde in june, the big ten day festival in Ghent in july and lots of lovely fleemarkets in september. They are the hight of Belgium summer and activitees.

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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

  You can work from the shelter or the shed. Time to socialise with us and the other volunteers present is really important to us, so we only accept part-time digital nomads, no more than 2 hours/day or 1 day/week.

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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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