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Help on our homestead and with a festival in Gataučiai, Lithuania

World, Europe, Lithuania, Gataučiai

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Travel dates

About the workproject

We need 9 volunteers

Hello,

we are Saulius and Kamilė. We are living in a homstead. We don't have any children yet but we have 2 cats and 1 old dog. However, our family is big. During the summer we have many nice and good people around us that we call it family. Everyone is welcome to become a volunteer and join our team!

About Saulius:
Saulius is very passioned about traveling. He even had a bycicles' fixing workshop in the capital. Saulius visited a lot of places around the world and he (now both of us) have a lot of friends from different continents and he is always ready to tell you some interesting stories and share advices. Saulius is very creative, kind, open-minded and hard-working and he has a lot of experience in different fields: plumbing; contructions, woodworking, restaurations, renovations, fixing, building; decorating; radio technology; farming in general, gardening, tractors, apple farming, making drinks from apples; work with electricity;

About Kamilė:
Kamilė is passioned about traveling, sociology/anthropology, photography, cinema and art in general. She has many years experience in art of photography. She could discuss about photogtaphy and cinema for hours. However, she is also hard-working, creative and open-minded person. She has experience in working with tourism, as a receptionist, housekeeper; with media, wordpress, communications, graphic design; organising festival and other events, movements, gatherings; decorating spaces indoors and outdoors. She was involved in NGOs activities, had a lot of working experience in human rights and youth fields. She also playing with jembe and she really likes gardening, farming and renovating old furnitures and interior/exterior details. She describes herself as a self-educator and she loves the idea of DIY. At the moment she is trying to learn more about carving, woodworking, working with epoxy resing, about sustainable living ( eco-living, eco- villages, farms) and permaculture and she really is interested in climate change and relationship between humans and animals/nature and humans.

This year both of us decided to build a greenhouse and some raised beds for growing vegetables and herbs. We already started planting plants in greenhouse and outside. Help with gardening and farming is needed. We also like Zero Waste idea ( mostly we buying second hand furnitures, interior and exterior details, other things; we sort the garbage) but to be sustainable all the time is very hard, so we really are waiting for those who could help us to improve our not eco yet living. We think it's important to mention that we are not eating and not buying meat, but we eat fish, use milk products, eggs, honey, etc..

We are looking for volunteers who would like to contribute to the development of a campsite. The camping site is in a beautiful apple tree garden next to Šiauliai-Riga road (E12/E77) connecting Lithuania and Latvia. We are located 19 km away from the Hill of Crosses, one of the main tourist attractions in Lithuania.

We aim to develop village tourism and support village communities through employing local people and buying locally grown / produced food from them. We are passionate about cycling and have quite a few bikes that we can lend to volunteers.

Next to the camping site, there are old wooden hostels (one used to serve as a post office building 100 years ago) where we work as a hostel during high season and host different private events and celebrations. Our main target is to develop campsite.

Every august since 2008, we are hosting a music festival with many concerts, workshops, lectures, competitions and lots of fun!

REQUIREMENTS FOR VOLUNTEERS:
-positive and open-minded
-reliable, responsible, honest and trustworthy
-friendly, sociable
-not afraid of hard work, dirty work in different weather conditions

*️️️️️️️️️️️Driving license is an advantage
*️️️️️️️️️️️Cooking, organising food is an advantage


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You may meet volunteers from other countries or Lithuania helping on our site with whom you can chat and learn not only about Lithuanian culture, but also how we do certain works here (e.g. make apple wine in a non-industrial way, hand made wooden furniture). On long summer evenings we enjoy dinners together, chatting and tasting home made wine in a good company. If you stay here long enough, we can also teach you to cook some Lithuanian meals and speak some Lithuanian!

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Daily tasks may vary based on the skills and preferences of the volunteer, as well as the season. We need help with general maintenance in the house such as changing sheets, washing, hanging, tiding, organasing, cleaning spaces and surfaces, taking care of indoor and outdoor plants.

You may also engage in some creative projects like drawing / painting on the buildings, signs or anything that may fit in the current surroundings. Help may be needed with farming in our apple garden (whitening the tree trunks, collecting apples or simply cleaning up the old leaves in autumn or after winter). There are always some things to do around the house, like fixing or re-painting the fence, cutting grass, etc..

It would be a pleasure to invite volunteers with some skills like:

-paining, drawing, knowledge of paints and oils
-cutting wood, working with other woodworking tools
-building, contruction works, fixing
-renovating and restaurating furnitures and other interior/exterior details
-mowing the lawn/grass, trimmering
-cleaning, tiding, organising, washing, hanging, making food, etc..
-filmmaking, programming (IT)
-gardening (watering, weeding, planting, taking care of greenhouse, raised beds with vegetables, apple trees, flowers, other places with different types of plants)
-farming, digging, shoveling,
-working with electricity
-plumbing


If you are here around the festival time, there are a plenty of organizational tasks (like creating projects, spaces, communicating with visitors, working with stage mics, coordinating, combinating, building, painting, etc..) to do. For this time we are searching for really gifted and hard-working people.

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*️️️️️️️️️️️Volunteers will be provided beds with clean bed sheets in a shared space (no private rooms). Workawayers must take care (tide up, clean up, do not overload common spaces with their belongings) of the space they are living in. If you wish, you can also stay in the tent (or in a van if you have) in our beautiful apple tree garden. An hour of silence in a hostel and camping starts from 11 am (unless we have a party at reception's building or the hostel building, where volunteers stay, is empty).

*️️️️️️️️️️️Hot showers and clean toilets are guaranteed.

*️️️️️️️️️️️We do not cook for volunteers but we share our kitchen and provide a plenty of products for cooking. We support the village community by buying local and ecological products like eggs, dumplings, milk, cheese, butter, sour cream, curd, vegetables and fruits. Mostly we don't eat meat and definitely not buying it.

*️️️️️️️️️️️WiFi is available, smoking allowed only in the designated places outside.

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We do not expect volunteers to help more than half a day (but if you are able, we would be happy), so you will have a plenty of time to explore the beautiful surroundings, including the Hill of Crosses (one of the main tourist attractions in Lithuania located 19 km from us), Jakiškiai Manor House (5 km from us). If you are a nature lover, you may be interested in visiting Žagarė National Park. A great way to travel around is by bikes that we will be happy to lend you; there are special paths & routes or you can cycle along village roads wherever you like. The 4th largest city of Lithuania Šiauliai, offering a wide range of shops, bars and restaurants, is only 28 km away from us. It is a perfect transport hub if you would like to continue your trip by bus or train. Joniškis city (the nearest one, 10 km) in the past was a Jewish city, so many visit places there too. Muša Tyrelis swamp with a wooden path for tourists is about 15 km from us. Sometimes our friends and volunteers hitchhike to Latvia to reach the sea shore (100km from us). In administration building we have a spot we call info center where you may find interesting information about surrounding places.

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About the host

Sunny Nights Camping (18)

Host since

2019

Languages

English, Russian

Last seen online

more than 6 month ago

We don't have a photo of both of us together so we are uploading a photo of Saulius (:

Project dates

Open for offers, contact us


Work to be done

  • gardening
  • construction
  • farming
  • help in the house
  • teaching projects
  • maintenance tasks
  • tourist support
  • eco projects
  • art projects
  • pet sitting
  • house sitting
  • hostel support

Expected workhours

  • 6 hours a day
  • 5 days a week

Work exchange deal

  • shared room, camper, tent, guest house

  • shared meals

  • no money is involved

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