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Come help us bring an old farm back to life in Audembert, France!

The experience

Our names are Claire and Michiel, we're a young Franco-Belgian family living on an old farmstead near the coast of Wissant, North of France. For 7 years now we are bringing the old farmhouses back to life, while also bringing up our two daughters: Fleur (4,5 yo) and Perle (2,5 yo). We've done most of this with friends, family and volunteers. We love hosting and the life that a group of volunteers brings to our place. We hope to meet you soon!

What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

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

What you get

3 days off per week

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

Team Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other people.

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.

Discounts on Drinks: Get discounts for drinks and beverages from our bar.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

Free Hiking Tours: We’ll take you on excursions and hikes around town. For free!

Get free drinks or beverages.: Drink up! Get free and tasty drinks for yourself.

Free Parties: Get free entrance for the best parties in town.

Free Events: Get free entrance for the best events in town.

Bikes at your disposal: You can use our bikes any time you want.

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

Language lessons: Take free language classes at our place.

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 French or Fluent English

Between 18 and 45 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

Hello kind stranger!

Our names are Claire and Michiel, we're a young Franco-Belgian family living on an old farmstead near the coast of Wissant, North of France. For 7 years now we are bringing the old farmhouses back to life, while also bringing up our two daughters: Fleur (4yo) and Perle (2yo). We've been hosts on WorkAway since 2020 and we love the life that a group of volunteers brings to our place. Making you discover French culture, nature and the sea helps us to enjoy it even more ourselves. Teaching French and picking up on your languages widens our world view and help our kids to be future globetrotters - like you! The different nationalities we're welcoming make us feel like travelling the world while staying at home. Every day we're hosting, it widens our horizon and gives us love, laughter and friendship.

So far we've made an old stable into our home, we've renovated a 'longère' (long farmbuilding) into a woodworker's workshop, our workshop and office space, we've landscaped the courtyard and made a vegetable garden and greenhouse. We did most of this with friends, family and volunteers, it's been a wonderful adventure to share with so many different people! Last year we've transformed a former horse stable into a small house for volunteers, so our accomodation is comfortable now. This year we will continue maintaining the vegetable garden while also working on the mansion house.

We're welcoming help repairing the mansion house. With previous groups we've redone the outside of the house, next up is the inside! If you're motivated, we can teach you some basic carpentry, stone masonry and making and applying traditional chalk-hemp insulation on the walls.
We'll also need help maintaining the family vegetable garden, harvesting and conserving (and tasting!)

Activities & Shift

For those with green fingers there's our biological vegetable garden to maintain, transforming and conserving vegetables, a few overgrown hedges to be trimmed, wood to be chopped as well as feeding our chickens and caring for our sheep.
It's an amazing experience to see how much pride our volunteers take in the work they accomplish, learning and doing things they don't do in their daily life. Empowering you to surpass yourself is something we really like to do.

This summer we'll start working on the mansion house, the tasks on hand will depend on the status of our projects. We can tell you the specific things we'll be working on in your requested timeframe. DIY experience is not a requirement, but being curious and wanting to learn is ;)
In the first weeks we'll be taking out some wood and repairing the walls. After that we'll do a 'chantier participatif' to insulate the walls with traditional chalk/hemp insulation. There's some heavy lifting as well as light work, so anyone should find what suits them! In any case, we'll never ask you to do tasks that you don't feel comfortable about.

Rules

We provide your meals and housing in either our Tiny House or a room in the newly renovated stablehouse. The kitchen is shared in our house. All ameneties on site are available for you: woodstove, barbecue, pergola, terrace, mountainbikes, jacuzzi, kayaks, paddleboards, washing machine, ...

We provide bedsheets and towels, as well as working clothes, safety boots and safety gear if needed. Of course you're welcome to take your own if that makes you feel more comfortable.

To allow us a family life, breakfast is shared between WorkAwayers in the hosting house, all other meals are shared all together in the main house. Working hours and days are decided with everyone present, with respect of the 25 hours/week. We tend to work together from Saturday to Tuesday, so you can have a three day weekend from Wednesday to Friday.
We LOVE boardgames and we'll often play a quick game at lunch or a long one after dinner.
Easiest pick-up for us is Calais Frethun train station, which has a direct connection to Paris, London and Brussels. We'll pick you up and drop you off at the train station.
We're in the middle of the 'Parc Régional Naturel' so there's a lot of wildlife to be spotted around the farm and a lot of nice walking and biking routes around. We're also within the 'Grand Site des Deux Caps', which makes it one of France's hotspots to visit and means that most of the nicest spots are arranged for visitors with explanatory signs etc.
If the weather allows for it, we'll take you on kayaking trips at sea, we might even have a barbecue on a sandbank 4km off the coast, only visitable a few times a month!