An all round unique volunteering opportunity in the heart of Bulgaria

June 1st -   November 30th, 2021

Would you like to take part in a community building project with a focus on growing food while enhancing biodiversity?

The European Solidarity Corps (ESC) is the new European Union initiative that offers opportunities for young people to volunteer in projects that benefit communities and people around Europe. Green School Village (GSV) is excited to be offering people the opportunity to volunteer at the Balkan Ecology Project (BalkEP) under this initiative. This 6 month project is open to enthusiastic young people aged between 18 - 30 who are interested in developing food growing systems that enhance biodiversity, and want to take an active part in community building.

What will you be doing?

  • Learning from hands on experience how to plan, sow, plant, maintain and harvest produce from a vegetable garden. Experience different methods of processing the harvest using local methods and building simple dehydrators
  • Learning how to identify local herbs and their medicinal uses and experiment with making some homemade herbal remedies
  • Helping to support the local community by designing and creating a community garden and maintaining valuable infrastructure such as a shared garden irrigation system and local mountain trails. Engaging with the youth to help create a social sports club
  • Keeping a creative journal and blogging about your progress, tracking your experiences to share
  • Immersing yourself into local culture. Activities take place Monday - Friday for 6 hours a day, leaving plenty of free time. Included in the experience is Bulgarian language lessons

  Why should you take part?

  • You will gain valuable insight into what it takes to actually run food producing systems and how you can enhance biodiversity within them
  • This opportunity will give you hands-on experience and transferable skills that encourage entrepreneurship or enhance your employability
  • The ESC initiative covers your food, accommodation, travelling, language lessons, pocket money, mentorship and insurance costs
  • If you live in a rural area/outskirts of a city or you are unemployed/on low wage, you will get a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course from GSV throughout the whole ESC project

Interested? Then we look forward to hearing from you!

Please register here!

For more information (PDF)

Contact:
Misha at esc [at] greenschoolvillage [dot] org (esc[at]greenschoolvillage[dot]org) or Sophie at balkanecologyproject [at] gmail [dot] com (balkanecologyproject[at]gmail[dot]com)

Deadline for applications 30/04/21