Help on a South African Farm! Unique Experience Awaits! 🌾🌍

5.0
(40 reviews)40

The experience

Our workday is very flexible, starting at eight, tea time around 10:30 and ending at lunch time. Volunteers can also be asked to help with evening chores or supper preparations.
As a result of the diversity of our farm there is a large range of things to do at all times. As a working farm, the time of year will determine your activities. Examples include:
Milking/herding/slaughtering animals
Gardening
Weeding/clearing of fields
Cheese making
Etc.


What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Cleaning: Help clean the kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms and common areas.

Animal Care: Help look after and take care of animals.

Building & Repairing: Help with a wide range of repairs or building.

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens


What you get

1 day off per week

Private Room: You will have a bed in a private room. In other words, a room just for you.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

Pick Up: We will pick you up when you arrive, and take you to our property.

Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.

Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely


Requirements

Fluent English or Fluent Dutch

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers


What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa


Program Details

We are a small family, and volunteers that will enjoy being included in the family life are ideal. Our main objective on our farm is to be as self-sufficient as possible and to live and farm in an environmentally responsible manner.
The food you would be eating is largely home-grown and seasonal. We are not vegetarians, as we feel it is ethical to eat the meat from our farm.
We do not employ any paid labourers on the farm, so there is always a lot of hard work to be done. A good work ethic is essential and volunteers who enjoy our lifestyle and the work that comes with it, are most welcome.
Your accommodation would be in a free standing building, set aside for volunteers and is very basic or rustic. It’s divided into 3 bedrooms and a lounge \ kitchen where you would prepare your own breakfast (we provide oats,maize meal, often another cereal, milk, tea, coffee, sugar). This accommodation is functional, but not luxury. We provide bedding.


Activities & Shift

As for the work, we ask volunteers to work about 5 hours a day, 6 days a week. Starting at 08:00 with sweeping and tidying the milking area, washing milk bottles and feeding animals etc. Volunteers help with the goat milking most days. Cheese making, bottling the milk and washing and cleaning the dairy is a daily chore.
Ideally, after a cup of tea or coffee and a snack, we would then move on to the job of the day, which could be anything from mixing concrete to fixing fences, to working in the vegetable garden or even slaughtering animals for the deep freeze( we understand if you want to skip this one ). Unfortunately it is not always possible for our volunteers to choose what work they do, as we prioritize the tasks that need doing.
After lunch you would have the afternoon off until 17:00, when we would ask you to help with evening chores, like feeding animals, collecting firewood, helping prepare supper or whatever else.
On Fridays, we have a Pizza Evening for our neighbours. We use home grown or locally used products for the pizza and if volunteers are keen to help in the evening, they get Saturday morning off.


Rules

We ask that volunteers are respectful of our home and the way we live.
We are quite punctual and appreciate people who can arrive on time for work and not keep us waiting.