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🌱 Permaculture Volunteering Experience

The experience

We are a passionate permaculture project creating a sustainable home oasis 🌾. We’re looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help with organic gardening, composting, and food forest maintenance.

In return, we offer hands-on learning, cultural exchange, and shared vegetarian meals. Join us for a rewarding and inspiring eco-experience! 🌍✨

What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Kitchen Hand: Help prepare, finish and serve meals.

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

Farming: Plant crops, sow seeds and help in outside tasks.

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

Additional fee required

Amount: US$ 5 Per day

Fee pays for: Benefits for travelers and Materials for volunteer activities

Description: Volunteers would require to contribute for meal costs, that'll will cover the expenses of three meals; breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. Also if we go out to National Parks or any tourist attraction you need to pay the entrance fee seperately.

What you get

2 days 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.

Free Tours: We’ll take you on tours and rides around town. For free!

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

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

Language lessons: Take free language classes at our place.

Permaculture Course: Take part in our Permaculture course for free.

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

Fast Internet Access: High-speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Fluent English

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

Hi, I’m Shirin, a hippie gardener 🌸. I’ve been hitchhiking and traveling around the world since 1987, when I was 25 — mostly across Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. I lived in Berlin for 10 years as an artist, where I enjoyed painting. Now, I’ve moved back to Malaysia and am pursuing my new passion — permaculture.

By a stroke of luck (and a bit of courage to make friends with strangers 😄), I found an abandoned field about 20 minutes from my home that neighbors used to throw away bulky trash. I saw its potential to become a food forest, so I asked the nearby residents if they were okay with me transforming it — and they said yes!

We cleared the trash (old TVs, sofas, and all kinds of things), cut down the tall grass, and started building my garden 🌿. That was about 6–7 years ago.

During COVID, I couldn’t visit the garden for a long time because I was taking care of my mum, so it grew wild again. Now I’m the only one working there, and I really need some extra help to keep it going 💪.

I’m 60 now but still very active! My older neighbors who used to help have gotten too old to work, so I’m looking for younger volunteers to join and help me achieve my dream of a self-sustaining food forest 🌱.

You’ll stay at my home, where I live with my mum and brother in a cozy two-story house about 15 minutes’ walk from the garden. You’ll have your own private bedroom and toilet

We provide meals and can show you around Johor Bahru — it’s a great place to stay, and also a convenient stop if you’re traveling next to Singapore 🇲🇾➡️🇸🇬.

Activities & Shift

We work on a variety of gardening-related tasks 🌼.

Morning shift: 6:30 AM to 9:00 AM (before it gets too hot) ☀️
Evening shift: 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM 🌇

Activities include planting, composting, mulching, watering, and general food forest maintenance.