Learn about traditional roof building in our off-grid community at the foot of the Alps in Issiglio, Italy

Details

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  Description

  Actually we are open for up to 5 people, who would like to stay with us for longer term - at least 1 - better 2 months or more.
  
  We invite you to share our communal life at an really extraordinary place in the middle of the forest. Live with us, work with us and grow with us
  
  Check us out:
  
  Our community consists of several homesteads on neighboring lots of land situated at 900m of altitude at the foot of the Alps, in the middle of beautiful forests consisting mainly of chestnuts and birch trees. At the moment, 7 adults (age 15 to 65) are living on the place. There is a greater number of people around us, who don´t live with us permanently but assist in further development of the place with their ideas, their help and also with financial support.
  
  Out of abandoned mountain farms, we are creating a place of beauty and community where people live the new culture based on the principles of sharing and love. A place that will give you the opportunity to deeply reconnect with your true inner self and with nature.
  
  We have started 8 years ago, working at creating communal infrastructure and further renovating the old stone mountain farms which 40-50 years ago were abandoned, when cattle farming on the mountains was much less appealing to the young generation, so they went into the cities for work and living.
  
  Our water comes from springs and mountain streams, we heat and cook with wood, and our electricity comes from solar panels. We renovate our buildings using eco-friendly materials as well as traditional building materials and methods. We garden according to ecological principles, even producing and using terra preta as fertilizer.
  
  Projects waiting for your creativity and contribution include several building activities, turning an old spring house into a tiny house for guests, renovating a big old stone house that could host a small community of young people within the community and of course the gardens
  
  Ongoing work that you would also be able to join in includes gathering or making wood, tending the gardens, cooking/ cleanup, shopping, spending quality-time with us, harvesting chestnuts, cooking preserves, and much more.
  
  We eat mainly vegetarian dishes, with the occasional meat or fish of well known origin. We use dairy products since we have our own goats that give us milk and cheese and also some meat.
  
  We grow a variety of vegetables in our gardens, and shop with local producers for most of our fruit and the rest of the vegetables. We always try to reduce the amount of food we buy in the supermarket in order to reduce packages and plastic waste even more.
  
  We are a drug-free community and do not allow smoking on our land, however, visitors are free to smoke beyond our borders - meaning you get to take a short walk when you go for a smoke... ;-)
  
  We have a dog, a cat and goats and therefore we prefer workawayers without animals.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Help with Eco Projects

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Farmstay help

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  You will spend your stay in a beautiful natural environment, with a lot of quiet, pure air, clean water, amazing sunrises and sunsets, lots of sun (though sometimes we have longer rainy periods). There are many animals to be observed, birds, butterflies, bugs, deer, sometimes even snakes or boars. Around us, there is the beautiful region of Piemonte, with its people and culture.
  
  You will be integrated into our community, experiencing our culture of honest, caring communication and relationships. This means you will be able to attend some of our meetings where we share not only about organizational matters, but about what we feel. Sometimes we do talking-stick circles, sharings, intensive days for relationship building, and rituals, like for Solstice. You may be invited to join us if there are birthdays to be celebrated, when we have friends over, or go for a pizza at the nearest village. There may be evenings at the fire with singing and making music, walks in the forest, laughter, lively conversations about the meaning of life and lots of other things...
  
  Our members are almost all German, so if you are looking for a chance to freshen up or practice your German, learning can happen as part of the shared, everyday activities - we will not be able to give you language lessons. However, we are fluent in English, so we do not expect you to speak German. You should be able to express yourself fairly well in English. We also speak more and more Italian.
  
  By being a member of our community for the time of your stay, you may enjoy a level of true contact a lot of our visitors tell us they miss in their everyday lives. You'll experience a life where most of your activities are immediately meaningful to yourself and to your fellow-community members - first chop wood, then cook your food with it... You might get new insights about yourself, about satisfying relationships and what makes them work (in our experience and cultural context).

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  Help

  Our rural forest life on the mountain slope offers a great variety of tasks, and that's part of what we love about it!
  
  5 hours of help on five days per week is a great support for us. All of us work on rather flexible schedules, so when your help is needed is flexible, too, and we try to make it work for all of our needs, yours as well as ours. Your days off may not always be on the weekends, but this is something we will discuss, either prior to your arrival or when you are here.
  
  We could use your help with building, woodworking and support in the kitchen as well as in the gardens.
  
  This means supporting work like
  - carrying building materials
  - light demolition work
  - some digging
  - basic woodwork like sanding, painting...
  - help with cob work
  
  In the area of maintenance work, there is:
  - cooking, food preparation, clean-up, other house work
  - chopping and collecting wood
  
  Garden work:
  - digging, watering, weeding, sowing, fertilizing, harvesting, maintenance of tools...
  
  Depending on your passion, interst and skills, there may also be the possibility of you helping us with some online activities like updating a website, posting pictures or videos, blogging etc. Another possible help would be, if you enjoy it, teaching our children something you are knowledgeable about.
  
  You will either work together with one or some of us, or be shown what to do and then entrusted responsibility for certain tasks. It depends on what you enjoy and what needs doing.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  German: Fluent
  English: Fluent
  Dutch: Fluent
  Italian: Intermediate

  This host offers a language exchange
  This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
  You can contact them directly for more information.
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  Accommodation

  In our "guest village" (located in the center of our land and the houses) you will find a communal kitchen in a stone house, a self-constructed yurt for up to 5 persons in a shared room and a tiny house for up to two persons plus a shower house and a compost toilet.
  Furthermore there are possibilities for a more private space, especially if you intend to stay longer with us.
  
  We try to constantly have a group of three workawayers, who can be a group within the community at their "own" place in the guest village.
  
  The showers and toilets are located in little huts outside. Our showers are solar and gas showers, the water comes from the streams running across our properties or the own well. We use compost toilets.
  
  We will provide food for you. In general, we will ask you to prepare breakfast yourself, since usually, all of us like to have the morning hours to ourselves. However, that is also flexible, depending on the work to do or on the other visitors present.
  
  We often have meals together, either as families or with the community as a whole. But within the group of workawayers you may sometimes want to prepare your own meals and make your own little invitations... Shopping on the local markets is quite lovely, too.

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  What else ...

  Fun things to do in the area include:
  
  - hiking (our land borders on a national park and we are right at the foot of the Alps, with closer peaks at 2400 m),
  - mountaineering,
  - sight seeing (you will need a car for that, as the closest town is at a distance of about 10km. There are the surrounding towns of Castellamonte, Ivrea, Rivarolo, the great cities of Turin and Milan are at 1.5 and 2hrs driving distance respectively, and our region is famous for its villages with many pottery workshops, and not far from us is the spiritual community of Damanhur with its amazing Temples of Humanity),
  - bathing in some of the cleanest mountain rivers Italy has to offer,
  - shopping at the local weekly markets or flea markets,
  - picking berries or mushrooms,
  - bird watching
  - sitting at the fire in the evening,
  - star-gazing,
  ...
  
  The nearest airports are Turino Caselle, Milano Bergamo and Milano Malpensa. The nearest train stations are Ivrea and Rivarolo. The nearest bus stop is at about 7km from our place. If you want to be mobile, we advise you to check out rental car offers in the area, which often offer astonishing deals. For a fee, we offer a shuttle service to Turin Caselle Airport and Ivrea train station.
  
  We ask visitors to agree to our rules and to read our Common Ground (this is only for your information, no need to subscribe to it!) before coming. Most visitors find this very easy and even inspiring.
  
  One of the things important to us is a careful and conscious use of media devices (tablets, smartphones, laptops). We ask any visitors to use them as little as possible in public. This is because although the digital reality is certainly most useful, we want our children and ourselves to grow up and live focused mainly on the real world and people around us, not on the virtual reality available through social media and media devices.
  
  If you have any serious medical or psychological issues, please let us know about these so that we can assess whether this is something we can support.
  
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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Space for parking camper vans

  Parking for any size of campervans possible. Larger ones a bit further down the street on another piece of our land.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  Hours expected

  Maximum 5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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