Introduction
This project aims to raise awareness of what life is like on an organic dairy farm, and to share knowledge on important sustainable organic farming practices, and homemade farming products, with ESC volunteers and members of the wider community.
The voluntary work will start in March 2020 (start date is negotiable) and end in March 2021 – duration is 12 months.
Host organization offers the work oppurtunity only for two volunteers, therefore apply as soon as possible.
Activities
During this project, activities include both standard farm related work as well as cultural activities.
Farm work involves, among other things, helping with the milking of cows, taking care of cattle, maintenance of farmland, and creating organic food products like cheese or yoghurt; while cultural activities involve selling locally produced organic food products in the shop onsite, promoting the shop and its products, and creating awareness about the increasing importance of organic farm products. A further cultural activity includes the maintenance of an educational walking route that was established on the farm a couple of years ago.
Apart from these activities, the volunteers are also welcomed to act on their own ideas about how the shop, educational walking route, or the farm’s appearance, could be improved.
Tasks:
- Working with animals: the milking of cows, taking care of cattle
- Maintenance of the natural landscape and farmland
- Help with creating organic farm products like cheese, butter, yoghurt
- Selling locally produced organic food products in the shop onsite
- Promoting the shop and its products & raising awareness of the importance of organic food products
- Maintaining and developing the farm’s educational walking route
- Giving a hand where needed
Requirements for the candidate
- You enjoy the rural countryside lifestyle, working with animals and nature
- You are interested in nature and sustainability
- You don’t mind rolling up your sleeves and doing physical work
- You take initiative and are able to work independently
- You have good communication skills, and are confident about communicating with adults
Because of the farm’s rural location, we also prefer to select participants that are independently minded and able to entertain themselves in their spare time.
To apply
If you are interested, please send your CV and motivation letter describing why you want to take part in this project (a general motivation about ESC is not enough) toesther.van.langen@siw.nl as soon as possible.
Additional info
Farmer Koos and his family have many successful years of working with ESC volunteers, and are passionate about giving foreign youth the opportunity to experience Dutch culture in an intimate and educational way. For further information about the host organization (and photos), we encourage you to visit their website: https://beekhoeve.eu/
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