Come and help us build an eco village in the forest on Bornholm, Denmark

Infos

• 

  Description

  We are a group of people who are working on creating an eco-village on our land in the forest on Bornholm.
  
  We are right now a group of 11 adults and 10 children involved in the project, but the group keeps evolving and we hope to be around 18-20 households living on the land as the project grows.
  
  Where most eco villages spend 2-5 years planning everything before buying land - we did the opposite! We just bought the land in an almost spontaneous way and then had to figure out everything!
  
  The space is a 12 hectare piece of land in the forest on the Danish Island Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. It was built as a work camp in 1939, and has since been a boarding school for kids from Greenland and then a "production" school. It has been empty for around 10 years and left to severe neglect and vandalism. There is one very big building and several small ones. All of the buildings need to be seriously renovated.
  
  We want to rebuild the houses with natural building materials, as local and sustainable as possible. We want to open the space for children and adults to spend time in nature and share workshops, food, music and creativity. We want to include many rooms and spaces for people to have a place to realise their dreams together with the community.
  
  ***To provide a smooth and easy arrival in our community we decided to establish a more structured joining process. If you resonate with what we are doing here in the place, we ask you to arrive on Fridays in uneven weeks. The Saturday after, we have our workday where you can dive into our community spirit straight away and get to know most of us. You will receive an introduction into the tasks that await you and where you find tools und stuff on the property. During your stay there will be one of us who will be mainly responsible for questions and needs that come up. If you are a person that needs guidance and feedback for every step you take, we might not be able to meet that need. But if you take the chance, we trust you to give your very best and we love see this place being shaped with your individual ideas and skills***

• 

  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Projets artistiques

  Aide avec des éco-projets

  Jardinage

  Bricolage et construction

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Entretien général
• 

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

  ...

  ...

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Qu'est-ce que c'est ?
• 

  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  Come and live in community in the middle of the wild forest and see how we realise our dream of living a simple life in the forest in close contact with the land and each other.

• 

  Projets impliquant des enfants

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

• 

  Aide

  The main project and what we need help with most, is building the space and the buildings. This summer of 2024 we will build the new volunteer house - an existing shed that we want to renovate with lime and clay to become a house with two small rooms and a communal living room and simple kitchen for volunteers.
  You will of course be guided but a bit of knowledge in building construction and the courage to try something new is very valuable! There will both be demolition work to be done, building with natural materials such as straw, clay and wood, and also some more traditional building.
  
  General forest work like clearing, cutting and stacking wood is very much needed. All experience from chopping wood to handling chainsaws is very welcome.
  
  The third main project we need help with is the garden. We just are still our garden on our own field and there is always a lot of work to do.
  
  Usually volunteers will have one cooking day a week (you will cook together with one or two others).

• 

  Langues

  Langues parlées
  Danish: Courant
  Allemand: Courant
  Anglais: Courant
  Italien: Intermédiaire

  Cet hôte propose un échange linguistique
  At the moment we have Danish, German and Italian nationalities (one Danish/Italian child) in the group. The kids are in the process of learning English, some already speak it fluently, so please just talk to them, that will help them learn :)
• 

  Hébergement

  Summer 2024:
  As mentioned above, we will be renovating the new volunteer house and we only have a small former sauna that is now turned into a volunteer hut for one person available. Furthermore we have spaces for tents and motorhomes.
  
  We have compost toilets only, a communal kitchen, living room and shower.
  We cook communal meals once a day 2-3 days a week (early dinner around 17:30). We mostly eat vegan and vegetarian. The days that there are not communal dinner, you will cook for yourselves.
  We dumpsterdive and harvest from the garden as main source of communal food. But please ask if there is anything you need in the kitchen and we can buy it for you!

• 

  Autres infos...

  Every second Saturday we have communal workday where everybody meet up and work on different communal projects together. On the other days of the week, the members of the community will mostly work on their own projects and as a volunteer you will be working with the other volunteers on communal projects.
  
  **VOLUNTEERS WITH CHILDREN**
  We are happy to host volunteers with children, but to balance the fact that families with small children are usually not able to work as many hours and are also more mouths to feed - we ask that families take care of their own breakfast and lunch. In that way we can also afford to host big families and you won't have to feel bad about not being able to work as much and instead take time off to care for your family!
  
  As a volunteer you will have 2 days off a week (usually Sunday and Monday, as Saturday is our communal workday, but you are welcome to request other days) to explore the island, which has many treasures to offer! To mention a few there are sandy beaches with some of the worlds finest sand, to the dramatic cliff coasts in the north. All the coastal villages are very charming and almost all have a fish smokery where you can taste the traditional smoked fish from Bornholm.
  Bornholm is a holiday island, so the possibilities of what it offers are many!
  Walking distance from the land is the great Almindingen forest (which we are inside) with Ekkodalen - a rift valley through the forest, and the Almindingen Bisons, which few of us has yet been able to spot!
  We strive to be able to provide bicycles to be able to explore the island further.
  
  **GETTING TO BORNHOLM**
  
  *From Denmark*: there are cheap bus tickets from Copenhagen (central station or airport) to Bornholm, which takes you over Sweden and the ferry from Ystad to Rønne - tickets at kombardo website ( kombardo (dot) dk )
  There is also possibility to take a night ferry from Køge (good option if you come with bike)
  
  There are ferries directly from Germany (Sassnitz) and Poland (Swinoujscie).
  
  From Sweden there is easy access with the Ferry from Ystad. All ferry tickets on bornholmslinjen website (dot dk)
  
  There is a national airport on Bornholm too (Rønne) - the closest international airport is Malmö or Copenhagen.
  
  From Rønne on Bornholm you can take a bus to Åkirkeby Terminal. From there it's 4 km to here - there is no easy public transport all the way to the place, but we can pick you up by car in Åkirkeby.

• 

  Informations complémentaires

  • 

    Accès Internet

  • 

    Accès Internet limité

  • 

    Nous avons des animaux

  • 

    Nous sommes fumeurs

  • 

    Familles bienvenues

• 

  Espace pour garer des vans

  We have lots of space for Campervans and motorhomes, so please bring your mobile home and park it in the volunteer area :) We don't have a set up system for plugging your campervan to electricity atm, but maybe it can be arranged. You are of course able to use the communal kitchen, shower and toilets as much as everyone else.

• 

  Possibilité d'accueillir les animaux

  Dogs, or whatever lovely exotic pets you might have, are very welcome, but have to be friendly with children, as we have a lot of free range kids running around! We have 3 cats, a bunch of chickens and 3 ducks ourselves.

• 

  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Plus de 2

• 

  Nombre d'heures attendues

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

Feedback (11)