This month’s blog post is to celebrate all the wonderful volunteers who have stayed at Aranya Eco Village and helped us on our journey.
Thank you all!..
Our helpful friend pointed out that we are yet to include volunteer experiences in our blog posts… and they were right! All of our wonderful volunteers over the years have had little opportunity to let us know about their experience of Aranya Eco Village – what they liked and what they didn’t so much enjoy. So we would like to dedicate this blog post to our past volunteers – who have grafted in the early mornings, herded the cow(s) in the later afternoons, sown many seeds in their trays and watered all the crops along the way – who have, at the end of the day, made Aranya Eco Village what it is today.
We have been left with wonderful artistic sculptures, kitchen garden beds, new windows, doors and walls for a number of buildings and an ever-ending list of things that have come about from their generosity and hard work. They have been great and we are so grateful they chose to volunteer with us.
Sharing your experience of Aranya Eco Village
Have you stayed as a volunteer at Aranya Eco Village? Would you be happy to share your story? Whether the experience was good or bad, we’d really love to know all about it. This can be in as little or as much detail as you would like to share and can be discussed or merely acknowledged, we’ll leave you to direct the flow of conversation.
To help us develop our volunteer experience we must know what does and doesn’t work, from your perspective, not ours. Through hearing about your experiences (with your permission), we can take on recommendations and feedback to develop our volunteering programme in ways that really work for our volunteers. If you enjoyed a certain activity, felt there was not enough time for… breakfast, for example, or found it too hot to work at certain times, these details can be taken on board and make a big difference to future volunteers. We also really want to hear about your overall experience and grasp your perspectives on Aranya Eco Village – feedback or not, we’d welcome an honest perspective about all that we are doing.
If you would like to share your volunteering experience, as well as any recommendations you may have, please get in touch through our email: ecovillagemovements@gmail.com or our Facebook page. You can also visit our contact page in the above bar.
Little farm update before we go
Whilst Raja (founder) was away in the North of India, we didn’t update to blog very much and most of the updates we did went through our Facebook page. Apologies to those of you who keep in touch through the blog posts, we will be updating regularly from now on.
Raja returned from the North of India in early April and brought his friends along too for a week of …thinking, really. You see, at the moment, we are looking at different ways for Aranya to develop itself, so we thought a spot of brain-storming with a dynamic group of people was the best way to do it. Whilst the group was at the farm, as well as brain-storming, they also helped with a lot of general farm tasks and lent their skills with landscaping and construction. As this is our first blog post since, we would like to take the opportunity to thank the group who were with us for that week – lots of great work took place and there was plenty of ‘food for thought’ generated – thank you Tribe!
As well as the group’s help, thanks to the big help we have received from Omar, Dhanu and Gundu (“thank you, thank you”), the farm now has a number of things growing in the beds; two types of chilli, peppers, red amaranth, four varieties of beans, corn, carrots, tomatoes, okra and zucchini – yum yum yum!
Here are a few snaps from the farm…
…plus a lovely video of all the fun had with the group – thank you friends for the video!
So this month’s post has really been a big thank you to all the hard-working, caring individuals we have been blessed to spend time with over the last few years. Where ever you all are now, we hope you are happy, healthy and enjoying life’s journey. Remember to send us a message if you have any comments on your experience of volunteering at Aranya Eco Village – we’re looking forward to hearing from you all!
Until the next time – wishing you all a lovely, productive month of May.
Aranya Eco Village 