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ES Trip Abroad

Sunseed Desert Technology - http://www.sunseed.org.uk/

Sunseed project is located in Los Molinos del Río Aguas, a beautiful village in Almeria, southern Spain. It’s a hands-on practical centre for low-impact living and environmental education. At this lively international community, staff and volunteers work and learn together to develop, demonstrate, research and communicate alternative ways of having less impact and a smaller environmental footprint.

 

Daily activities
Short term volunteers work for a minimum of 25 hours per week (Mon-Fri), during the mornings, with the 
afternoons free to join guided tours led by Sunseed’s department co-ordinators, seminars, workshops, or siesta!… and weekends also free. Jobs to do during the mornings include working within the departments at Sunseed, co-ordinated by a member of staff. Volunteers often work in small groups, and usually work alongside the co-ordinator of the department they’re working in.

These can include:

 

❧ Organic gardening – preparing seedbeds, planting seeds, weeding, preparing compost
❧ Drylands management – plant research trials, irrigation line, waste water management
❧ Appropriate technology – maintenance of solar energy system, developing low-tech products
❧ Sustainable living – harvesting and preserving herbs, olives, fruits, vegetables
❧ Communication and Education – writing/translation information boards, signs, leaflets, photo-journalism for 
the Sunseed website
❧ Eco-construction & maintenance – repairs to doors, windows, buildings, building compost toilet, shelves, 
furniture.

 

Seminars, language classes, discussion groups, and demonstrations are also optional to attend in the afternoons, taken by a department co-ordinator.

 

Living style
Sunseed is off-grid, and those living in Los Molinos des Rio Aguas lead a very simple lifestyle, therefore internet access, hot water and electricity in general is limited. There is one telephone on which people can receive and make phone calls everyday after 18:00 and at the weekends at anytime. There is limited access to the internet for volunteers working on their projects, but we do organize bi-weekly trips to Sorbas, the nearest town, where there are shops, internet cafes etc. Sorbas is about an hours walk from Sunseed and about 30mins on a bicycle. We have a good solar heating system for the water for showers, but this means that when there is no sun hot water can be limited. Due to the international nature of Sunseed the operating language of the project is English.

 

Eating arrangements
They have a rota for cooking and cleaning duties; everybody is asked to choose around two rota duties a week.They have a vegetarian/vegan diet, with eggs usually only once a week. Please also note that sometimes we aren’t able to buy eggs and don’t provide milk for drinks etc. We ask that fish and meat are not brought on to the project. Most of our food is organic (the food from our gardens and some of the bought food), but not all. All staff and volunteers eat together.

 

Accommodation
The accommodation is basic, if you imagine indoor camping that will give you some idea of how we live. Depending on the number of volunteers we have, other rooms are shared – most between 2 or 3 beds, and a couple with up to 6 beds. Our dorms are mixed gender; if you require same gender accommodation, please make this clear when you are booking your stay here.

 

Sanitary arrangements
We have urinals and shower block by the main house, and a compost toilet in the gardens. The compost toilets in the gardens require squatting – no toilet seat or basin, but have lovely views! We use river water for washing (brought to the houses by our water-powered ram pump), some of which is solar heated, you should be aware that in winter hot shower water is often limited and in bad weather the water can sometimes be quite chilly!

 

COSTS

 

€120 for 1 week at Sunseed.

Flights and transfers are yet to be confirmed.

 

Whole week expected to be around £200!

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