Category: Volunteers

When I moved back to my childhood island of Tisenö with my daughter, it also marked a new beginning for the farm's long tradition of hosting WWOOFers. For over 40 years, people from all corners of the world have been a natural part of life on the island. For me, WWOOF is not just about helping with the farming, but about community, exchanging knowledge and creating a place where people want to return.

What does it take to revive an old farm? For me, the answer wasn't independence, but collaboration. This is the story of how working with volunteers shaped not only my country, but also my understanding of community, work, and belonging.

This article is about how a dream of a Tiny House led to a slightly different life in a "volunteer collective" on an organic vegetable farm on Gotland.

This article is about how volunteers facilitate our work with the annual operation of Nackagård. We talk about successful collaborations, but also the challenges of running project management on the farm.

In the summer of 2023, I left Landvetter to head to Mörhult in Småland. A journey both physically and mentally. In fact, I was on my way to spend two weeks at the cooperative farm Gröönsgård for volunteer work, but my goal was different. Together with Mimmi, Nicklas, Balder, Idun and Sigge, I wanted to see if my dream of a future self-sufficiency was realistic. The answer would be yes, which gave rise to the idea of ​​trying to inspire readers of Åter to the same opportunity – to test the dream “in reality”.

This magazine recently published a well-written and comprehensive article about volunteer work. As I myself have had a large number of visitors from the organization Workaway, I read this article with great interest. It slowly dawned on me that I must have been one of the absolute worst prepared volunteer hosts in the country. I have basically had no idea. If the reviews hadn't been decent, I probably would never have dared to write this article. Therefore, read this primarily as a reflection and summary of experiences.

Hosting a volunteer is an excellent opportunity to support your business with an extra workforce and bring a breath of fresh air into your everyday life. I have worked with volunteer placement, have volunteered in several different projects abroad myself and have been involved in welcoming volunteers in my own project. Those experiences gave me a lot and have even shaped my whole life – otherwise I wouldn’t be living in Sweden right now. That’s why I want to tell you in this article about what you can do to make it a successful experience for both the volunteer and the host.

Anyone who takes over a farm that has previously been in the family takes over not only the farm but also the networks that exist as a security around the farm and its inhabitants. Anyone who moves to the countryside as a city dweller has to build the knowledge and security network that is needed themselves. In this article, we will describe our thoughts on this and how we have gone about it.

After four years of wwoofing on farms in Europe and Japan, I now live on a self-sufficient farm with vegetable sales and can host wwoofers myself. We have now had around 150 interns on the farm and I thought I would share some tips on how we make wwoof hosting work here at our place.

In the fall of 2009 we became a host farm for WWOOF and a few hours later we had our interns booked in. This article will be about the trip there and how it has gone since, our experiences and some tips for others who are thinking about joining.

We have a Wwoof farm and it's amazing. In many ways. The whole world comes here to us while we walk and trudge around in the same soil. It gives us an opportunity to seriously understand that what we do is part of a larger network and that we are not alone.

Together with my daughter Hjördis, I went to New Zealand where we worked as volunteers on different farms. We went through the organization Wwoof, where you work about 30 hours a week in exchange for food and shelter. A good way to learn something new in an exciting country and get in touch with the locals. At the same time, you have the opportunity to travel around a bit and take in nature and culture. Here is part of our diary:

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