Your help is welcome! The possibilities are diverse.
Stay
You can come and give us a hand with the work in exchange for a place to sleep and daily meals for some weeks to get a taste of the life at Boskanter.
Do you want to experience living at Boskanter for a longer period of time, then you could stay several months. The longer the stay, the better possible it is to take responsibility for a small part of Boskanter, such as the planning and executing for a piece of the garden or an individual project within Boskanter.
You can find Boskanter on helpx and workaway. There you will also find more and current information on what it really means to volunteer on Boskanter.
Subsidized Exchanges.
Thanks to subsidized exchange program, young people from other European countries or other communities in Belgium can receive extra support for their stay at Boskanter.
Europe
Boskanter is a host organization for European volunteers through the ESC program.
European young people aged 18 to 31 can work at Boskanter for two months to a year. Together with a youth organization in their home country, we support them to make it a successful learning experience. Travel costs to Boskanter and on the spot will be refunded. The volunteer receives 4 € pocket money per day.
Together with our partner farm Klokhuis, we can host up to four volunteers throughout the year within this program. In the summer, three more places will be added for short-term exchanges (two to four months). Interested young people first apply at Boskanter. If there is a match and a local youth organization, the exchange can go ahead as soon as the preparation by the local youth organization has been completed. The young person must find a youth organization in the home country himself.
Belgium
Boskanter is also a Bel-J host organisation. Through this program young people (between 12 and 30) from other Belgian communities can meet Flemish young people. The program was born in 2009 from the idea that only through real and long-term contacts you can discover the way of life of others, with all their similarities and differences.
Through this program, Walloon and German-speaking Belgian youngsters can come to Boskanter for up to three months. Those three months can also be taken in staggered terms, for example during a number of weekends or a holiday and a few separate days. The young person first applies at Boskanter. If there is a match, the young person submits an application to the youth service (BIJ). Be aware that they usually expect that application at least a month before the exchange. If the application is approved, the young person will receive a grant, part of which will be paid to Boskanter. Here you find the details for Walloon youngsters, here for German speakers. The Dutch explanation can be found here.
Workdays
Perhaps you feel a part of a day is enough for a first meeting or just want to roll up your sleeves and spent some time working together with others in the garden or forest? In that case the Open Workday could be an idea. We organise them every first saturday of the month. We wait for the covid19 regulations before starting the workdays again.
The Work
The bulk of the daily work consists of maintaining the land, such as: sowing, planting, weeding, scything, pruning, mulching and harvesting. When the season of abundance arrives, we are busy harvesting and preserving: drying, fermening, freesing, concentrating, … In the colder months there’s also lots to do surrounding the forest, hedges and firewood management, such as: pruning hedges, shredding wood, repairing fences, removing brambles, planting trees, and moving, cleaving and stacking firewood.
Depending on where your interest lies and when and how long you are here, there may be opportunities to get involved with and learn about:
- preserving food (e.g.: making jam, pickling, fermenting, drying)
- taking care of animals
- handicrafts (e.g.: wood and stone engraving, woodworking, spinning wool, leather crafting; basket weaving
- natural construction methods and finishes
- sourdough bread baking
- building rocket stoves or mass heaters
- and plenty of other things!