Sasha
& Celia

Royaume-Uni
Connectez-vous pour voir la dernière activité

Badges (4)

Photos

Voir tout

Offrez Workaway en cadeau

Information du profil

Information de voyage
Actuellement, nous sommes
à la maison
Notre prochaine destination :
Portugal - du Fév 2025 au Déc 2025
Voir tout
Description
We are a British family of three who are looking to spend some time exploring Portugal, make some great connections, and spend quality time together as a family.

WHO WE ARE
Celia and Sasha met abroad and spent several years in China and Japan teaching English as a foreign language. We moved back to the UK in 2017 and had our daughter a few years later, and are now looking to go abroad again in order to find a new pace of life and spend more time together. We are planning on traveling around Portugal in a motorhome/caravan, and would like to spend time volunteering in some different places to get a feel for different areas in Portugal. We’ve done volunteering in the past (when it was just us two) both through Workaway and independently.

OUR PRIOR WORKAWAY VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCES
2014 – Volunteering teaching English at a school in Nanshan (China)
April 2017 – Working on a small farm in Yamaguchi (Japan)
April 2017 – Working on a small permaculture garden in Itoshima (Japan)
November 2017 – Working on a Nature Reserve in Wales (UK)
November 2017 – Working in the garden of a private estate in Cumbria (UK)

OTHER VOLUNTEERING EXPERIENCES
Celia
Young Leader in the Girls' Brigade
University Raising and Giving society
Volunteering in a Christian bookshop
Working in a charity shop
Mission Direct trip to Uganda (Africa)
Volunteering in a Japanese cat café
Facilitating a Christmas Fun Day at a Kumamoto orphanage (Japan)
Teaching English to students of all ages for one month in Shanghai (China)

Sasha
Teaching English to refugees (UK)
Working in a charity shop
Working on events in a voluntary capacity
Working in outdoor pursuits with young people
Working as a volunteer to look after parkland in the UK

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR NOW
We’re looking for projects that we can join as a family. This will include jobs that we can undertake alongside our daughter (such as teaching/facilitating at a Forest School or similar) or work where we (Celia and Sasha) can take it in turns to look after our daughter and participate in other activities. We’re happy to negotiate our hours of work depending on if we’re staying in guest accommodation or in our own accommodation.
We’re interested in farming, permaculture, animal care, and basically just being out of doors. We are keen amateur gardeners and love projects both big and small, from weeding and planting to building raised beds. We’d love to learn more about being self sufficient and growing different crops, as it’s our dream to have our own smallholding in the future. We’d also like to spend time caring for animals, and our daughter loves spending time with animals so this would be great for her. A Forest School setting which combines the life outdoors with a teaching setting would be a perfect placement for us.
We’re also keen to take part in other manual jobs, such as painting and decorating, building, manual labour, etc. We’ve undertaken this kind of voluntary work before and are keen to learn new skills. We’ve also learned about DIY from completing various improvements to our home in the UK.

OUR SKILLS
Language - We’re a multilingual family, speaking English as a first language, Sasha speaks Swedish fluently, and between us we’re intermediate in Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese.
Teaching – We’re both trained, experienced teachers. Celia (BA, TEFL) teaches EFL, Japanese, and English lit and lang, and spent a year teaching in a kindergarten. Sasha (BA, MA, PGCE, CELTA) teaches EFL, IELTS, Theory of Knowledge, Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, with significant experience as a school councillor/tutor and staff mentor and middle manager.

OUR HOBBIES
Celia – I’m a writer by trade and so love creative writing whenever I get the chance, poetry, short stories, novels, etc. I have other creative hobbies too, such as drawing, baking, knitting, crochet, sewing and reading. I’m particularly interested in Japanese fiction. I like practicing yoga and Zumba.
Sasha – I love cooking, with a keen interest in Chinese cookery in particular. I’m a keen hiker and cyclist. I like gardening and have developed skills in making fruit wines recently. I like learning about plants and foraging. I love reading and doing my own research into philosophical topics. I have an enduring love of music and love collecting and learning about music as well as singing.
Our daughter loves drawing, making art, imaginative play, being outdoors, being with animals, building games, reading and writing.
Centres d’intérêt
Jardinage
Blogs
Nature
Ferme
Culture
Art et design
Animaux
Musique
Dev. durable
Politique/justice sociale
Yoga / bien-être
Écriture
Randonnée
Montagne
Langues
Livres
Cyclisme
Bricolage / artisanat
Dessin et peinture
Cuisine et alimentation
Langues
Langues parlées
Anglais: Courant
Swedish: Courant
Japonais: Intermédiaire
Portugais: Intermédiaire
Chinois (mandarin): Intermédiaire
Plus de détails sur les langues qui m'intéressent
Ce workawayer a indiqué qu’il souhaitait faire partager sa ou ses propre(s) langue(s) ou en apprendre une nouvelle. Veuillez le contacter directement pour en discuter.
Trouver un partenaire de langue
Compétences et connaissances que nous aimerions partager ou apprendre
Ça nous intéresse :
Aider dans une ferme
Éco-projets
Travail associatif
Home sitting
Nous avons des connaissances :
Jardinage
Bricolage et projets de construction
Entretien général
S’occuper des animaux
Projets artistiques
Accueil / tourisme
Aide informatique / Internet
Nous pouvons apprendre aux autres:
Préparer les repas / cuisiner pour la famille
Aider à la maison
Langues
Tenir compagnie à une pers. âgée
Enseignement
Baby-sitting et jeux créatifs
Quelles sont vos compétences ?
Sasha (Frans): teaching English to children and adults from 4 years old to 46 years old, academic writing and drafting to a masters level, journalism (reviews, published in Now Then Magazine), fluent Swedish and English, intermediate Mandarin Chinese (also reading), events management, painting and decorating, an interest in gardening and work on farms (experience with chopping down bamboo, pulling bamboo roots, planting, weeding, harvesting, mulching), forestry, house clearance, staging and DJing. I also worked in a bar for a couple of years and I love cooking, so food and drink are a bit of a passion for me.

Celia: teaching English, childcare, basic first aid, experience as a chef, experience as a cleaner, events management, academic writing and essay corrections, journalism, handicrafts (knitting, sewing), an interest in gardening and work on farms (experience with chopping down bamboo, pulling bamboo roots, planting, weeding, harvesting, mulching) and some experience in work on a building site (plastering).
Âge
41 & 35
Autres infos...
We are a couple, so we would like to share a room.
Informations complémentaires
- Fumeur
- Permis de conduire
- Allergies
- Régime alimentaire spécial
  No spicy food.

Sécurité du site

Feedback

9 juin 2025

Laissé par l'hôte (Join us building a paradise ...) pour le workawayer ()

Sasha and Celia are very kind people with their sweet daughter Eliza. They stayed at our place for five weeks and house sitted while we were away. Meanwhile their daughter could join the playgroup on site, and they were able to take care of our animals, the garden and several chores. Not the least prepared wonderful Chinese food! Thanks to both,… read more

(Excellent )

22 mai 2025

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Join us building a paradise ...)

We stayed at this project for over five weeks, and for most of that time we were housesitting while Evelien, Laurens and Reza were away. During this time we took care of the two dogs, giving them plenty of long walks in the forest, and also look after the two terrace cats who gradually got used to having us around. We didn’t have the best weather… read more

(Excellent )

27 nov. 2017

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Help to create a ...)

In terms of the work, this place is really good. Mostly we were out in the garden, which has an amazing view and is a well-kept area to be working in. The work changes with the seasons but for us it included weeding, painting, digging up plants, cutting down trees and shrubs, trimming dead leaves from plants, raking up fallen leaves, shovelling… read more and spreading manure, sweeping the pathways, potting plants, etc. Some volunteers were asked to help out with cleaning tasks in the house (polishing brass, hoovering, moving stuff around, washing the kitchen down) and also the chance to help out with similar tasks in the hotels. The garden manager is a nice guy and if you didn't want to be stuck doing the same thing all day he'd be happy to give you a better variety of tasks. The garden was was often heavy and dirty but with a break in the middle and a beautiful view to admire.

However, the downside of this placement is the living arrangements, which are below satisfactory. The volunteers stay in a large house by themselves – the host here is more of a benefactor than a host, and the garden manager isn't involved with the living arrangements – volunteers are just left to themselves. The rooms are spacious, quite clean and generally warm, but the communal areas are a big problem. The house has room for up to about 10 volunteers, but there is only one bathroom (with a bath and toilet), one separate toilet and a shower in the utility room. When the house is full (we were, at most, 9 volunteers at once) this makes things a little difficult – everyone gets up at the same time for work and there is a queue for the toilets, and after a hard day shovelling manure everyone wanted to take a shower, which wasn't possible. The kitchen is the biggest problem. There is one fridge and one small freezer for all the volunteers to use, and with everyone cooking for themselves it tends to be jam packed, as well as very messy. Only 3 of the 4 hob rings are working and the oven doesn't work at all. There is an Aga for baking etc but it doesn't perform well so takes a long time to cook things. Also there are very few pots and pans, we had to ask for a second chopping board, and while there are plenty of plates etc, it just takes one or two volunteers to leave their dishes hanging around for it to turn into a huge mess. Another big problem is that the food sent to us from the host, while very generous, is not really appropriate for a house of this size with so little storage. Mayonnaise and ketchup came in 5kg bottles – not the best considering the fridge is only a regular size! Everything we ordered came in huge quantities, some of it going off before we could eat it. The main problem with this place is that, for a house this size with this many volunteers, you need an overseer to organise a cleaning rota, to check stock rotation of food and to order things appropriately. To expect volunteers to do this themselves, when people are coming and going all the time, speaking different languages, is just not possible. What you get is one or two mature, kind people who end up doing more than their fair share, and others who treat it like a student house and leave mess all over the place.
This project has a lot of potential and I think, with the right combination of volunteers (who all pitch in with household tasks, who are open to the idea of cooking together, etc) this Workaway would be a great place to volunteer. As it stands, your experience volunteering here will be very much down to how many other volunteers are here at the time and what kind of people they are. If my rating were just based on the work, it would be 5 star.

(Très bien )

1 nov. 2017

Laissé par l'hôte pour le workawayer ()

What a pleasure it was to have Frans and Celia to stay. They are hard working, diligent, keen to help out around the place and easy to have around. They are both fantastic cooks and along with Celia's brother Gideon made us several delicious meals. They were very keen to be "no trouble" and were really happy either to hang out with us or do their… read more

(Excellent )

29 oct. 2017

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Stay in our beautiful bus and ...)

We had a great time staying with Sheila and Cliff in Llandeilo. We were there for about three weeks (along with my brother who is also doing Workaway) and at that time we were the only volunteers, though I know they had more volunteers over the summer. What we really liked about this experience was how varied the work was – Cliff and Sheila were… read more

(Excellent )

Voir tout

Photos

Voir toutes les photos

Amis

Feedback

9 juin 2025

Laissé par l'hôte (Join us building a paradise ...) pour le workawayer ()

(Excellent)

22 mai 2025

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Join us building a paradise ...)

(Excellent)

27 nov. 2017

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Help to create a ...)

(Très bien)

1 nov. 2017

Laissé par l'hôte pour le workawayer ()

(Excellent)

29 oct. 2017

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Stay in our beautiful bus and ...)

(Excellent)

22 juin 2017

Laissé par l'hôte pour le workawayer ()

This couple were really amazing volunteers. We really enjoyed having them here. They only stayed 2 weeks but we wish they'd stayed longer. They had good Japanese skills so they would teach the other volunteers.

Experience they gained while here; planting tea, planting herbs and vegetables, using the garden shredder, cooking, cleaning, teaching,… read more

(Excellent)

5 mai 2017

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Help create and maintain a ...)

We had a great time volunteering in Itoshima. The host was well organised, contacted us frequently prior to our arrival, picked us up from the station and could accommodate our wish to arrive early when our plans changed. The work was interested and varied - hard work but fun, and exactly as described (weeding, planting, mulching, picking,… read more

(Excellent)

30 juil. 2014

Laissé par le workawayer () pour l'hôte (Welcome to Study or Teach ...)

Veuillez consulter notre politique relative aux feedbacks pour en savoir plus sur les raisons de la non publication de ce commentaire.

(Neutre)

Pour laisser un feedback, il faut se connecter et avoir activé son compte.