Making sense of food (ESC)
Description: The volunteering team will be about food production and food conservation and its different aspects. Climate crisis, rise of prices of food and fuel and need for resilience in times of challenges, indicates the need to improve the knowledge and skills for production and conservation of food among young people and the others. The main idea of this ESC team is to share and exchange knowledge about different vegetables, fruits, mushrooms and herbs, to document stories and recipes for conservation of food, to get familiar with soil and its properties, natural fertilizers and to produce material for sharing of the knowledge.
Type of Work: The volunteers will take part in gardening, harvesting and conserving vegetables, fruits, herbs and mushrooms. They will be involved in everyday activities related to gardening, compost making, collecting fruits and vegetables, preparing natural fertilizers and so forth. They will be involved in different types of conservation processes such as natural fermentation, conservation with salt, vinegar, pasteurization etc. We will be using some traditional recipes from the Balkans, Europe and the world, and experiment with some new combinations. Documentation part: Some of the volunteers will be engaged in documenting processes and stories in different formats (photography, blog articles, small publication, video, etc).
Study Theme: The volunteers will be introduced to the basics of permaculture design ethics and principles, different gardening methods, and different methods for conservation of fruits, vegetables and mushrooms. They will also learn about impacts of food production on climate change and alternative ways for doing it. They will learn about and experience a simpler way of living in an international group of youngsters. We will organize several workshops, movie projections, visits to local people and food producers. We might visit producers of organic food in the region.
Accommodation: The volunteers will be accommodated in a house situated 150m from the project. The house has a tiny kitchen, shower and one outdoor composting toilet with the view on the valley The volunteers will be cooking in teams, vegan and vegetarian food. Sleeping will be on beds and matresses. There are many animals around (cats, dogs, chickens, gees, goats etc) thus volunteers should be comfortable with their presence.
Requirements: This is an ESC project, therefore, the volunteers should be between 18 and 30 years old and coming from European countries. Ideally, the volunteers would come by 'green travelling' options.
Approximate Location: Bozevce is a tiny village community situated in the Eastern part of Kosovo, in the Municipality of Ranilug. The village used to be inhabited by 600 people, but nowadays it has been reduced to only around 50. It is hidden behind hills, between forest, rocks, streams and meadows. It is divided between three neighborhoods and extends 3 km. For bigger shopping, markets and ATM there is the possibility to go to Kamenica, a town situated several kilometers from the village.
Notes: Volunteers will receive pocket money (3 euro per day).