Volunteer looking for permaculture experience

Hello permies,

My name is Sarah and I am an Australian who has developed a passion for permaculture principles. I will do an online course in October 2014, and in mid-November 2014 I shall fly to South America. I have previously travelled in South America for four months in 2013, and this is where I first discovered natural buildings and worked on an organic farm. My plan this time around is to volunteer on permaculture projects so as to develop my skills and knowledge. In addition I am very keen to learn more Spanish and I believe the best outcome of my volunteer work will be to help people to succeed in their endeavours to create something good in the world. At this stage I anticipate that I will be in South America for 2-3months... but if I find lots of opportunities to volunteer I may decide otherwise.

If you know of a permaculture project who requires volunteers please let me know.

Here are some databases for finding sites to volunteer at that I think might be useful: Ecovillage Project Database, WWOOF, and Permaculture Global.

Hi Sarah, here a cool website, cheers!

http://www.permacultura.org.br/

Lake Arenal Hotel & Mircrobrewery in Costa Rica is always looking for interns on their farms.
011-506-2695-6943
Ask for Jorge the gardener (he speaks English)

GREAT PLACE!

I volunteered at this place in costa rica last year and it was great!. http://www.vagosplace.com/

It isn't necesarrily permaculture but they are working towards 100% sustainability and they have a pretty good start going. We ate mostly food from their gardens and all helped to cook and clean and keeping an eye on her little 3 year old, kian. It is run by a woman named amanda who is suuuper smart and way ahead of her years. She knows so much about food and medicinal plants and it's really fun to learn from her. They make their own cheese, pesto, toothpaste, sun screen, and other medicinal skin creams that she makes from plants on her land and then she sells all of that stuff at the local farmers market. Oh and kombucha too!


Part of the garden.



This is where you sleep:



Me posing in a different part of the gardens.



And oh, did I mention this beach is like a 20 minute walk away:

Not sure if your travels take you as far as Brazil, but I have worked at a number of interesting sites. One location is a very old organic farm / early Permaculture site (Bill Mollison stayed there) that lapsed. It now has a new, young crew re-developing the site, that regularly runs English Language Immersion events to help fund the development. The other site is more younger, but is focused on developing a permaculture demonstration site. They have various composting systems (hot, cold and anaerobic), swales, hugul-swales, chicken tractors, raised sheet mulch beds on contour etc and will be repairing a pond and escavating 2 more in November. They also speak English fluently there. Both sites are pretty close to Porto Alegre in Southern Brazil.

Let me know if you are interested and I shall forward you the details.

Jason

Hey you should check out the gapper program here at wheaton labs.
https://permies.com/t/34633/labs/gappers

I have narrowed my location to Colombia for volunteer work - thanks for the previous advice. I have visited the links and written to some farms to see if they have any volunteer work for me. I haven't looked at the WWOOF website yet.... is that also for permaculture?
Has anyone worked in Colombia before? Recommendations?

Nice! I am not sure if anyone mentioned this site, but http://www.helpx.net/ is a really good work exchange website. That is where I found all of my work exchange places. You can go to that site and look at all the places in columbia.

Sarah- I am also looking at permaculture internships in Colombia for early next year. I'm really keen to learn more about recycling greywater, humanure and other water and sanitation type projects. Please keep us posted on where you land.

I completed my PDC in June in Thailand but am looking at South America because I used to live in Ecuador and want to also get my Spanish up to speed:)

If anyone has any suggestions for specific internships you know of to obtain hands on skills in water and sanitation systems as I mention above in Spanish-speaking countries, please share!:)