Where: Boževce
When: 22/06 – 01/07/2025
This training course is open to 18 youth workers, volunteer coordinators and activists interested in organising volunteering projects in natural buildings. Participants of this training course should come mainly from Europe, with the possibility to include countries from neighbouring regions.
The training will take place in Bozevce village in Kosovo, where GAIA has been developing an educational program for permaculture and natural building. The place is still under (natural) construction, thus it represents a good example of a place which is being built with the help of international and local volunteers, experts and friends. Participants will be in shared rooms. Food will be vegan with vegetarian options, mainly local products, very healthy and super tasty. There are cold and hot showers 
, composting toilets, plenty of trees and fields, and many animals such as dogs, cats, chickens, geese and bees.
The village is situated in the Eastern part of Kosovo, close to Kamenica. Around 30 people are living there, and there is no shop, no school nor a bar.
Project background or why natural building makes sense
Natural building is not any new revolutionary concept. It exists for much longer than it has been called as such. Humans have been building for millennia, from caves and wooden huts to complex structures capable of hosting thousands of people. The journey of building, with natural but also artificial materials, is one of the biggest achievements of our kind.
Natural building is part of the frame of sustainability but it did not create a strong link with practice and skills. And that’s where most learning experiences can sprout.
In practice that means that natural building practices, ethics, principles are transmitted with non-formal methods, through practice and theory. Starting with introduction activities and explanations about the general concepts and then getting deeper in the topic, connecting with broader topics such as Climate change, global crisis, traditional knowledge, injustices and inclusion. Whether it is practice or theory teamwork is one of the foundations of such activities and tries to counter a more and more individualistic society. The idea is not to give one option or to expect that all of them will radically change their lives so far. It is to first demonstrate the complexity of our society and of the issues that exist and to show what can be alternatives.
Project theme
- Theoretical knowledge on natural building (materials and history)
- Introduction to traditional building and how did it become natural building,
- Basics of safety on working site with inexperienced volunteers
- Use of hand tools for working with wood and earth
- Critical thinking on solidarity and volunteering nowadays
- Natural building as a tool for social inclusion, gender issues, youth empowerment
- How to design a short term volunteering project on natural building
What to expect
- introduction to Natural building
- practical workshops on working with earth and wood
- discussions about solidarity, climate change, linking to natural building
- group work on designing your future volunteering or community projects and actions about natural building
- volunteer actions with neighbours
- all costs are covered
- travel costs will be reimbursed after the training course
Profile of the participant
- To be 18 or older
- Interested in the natural building and volunteering
- Be part of a project, or an association
- Be willing to learn and create such projects
- To be active in an organisation that works in the field of natural building and/or volunteering or interested to start a project
- To arrive on 22th and leave on 1st of July (or 1-2 days before the arrival or 1-2 days after the departure day)
- Be willing to travel by green ways of transport (if possible)
How to apply
- If you are a youth worker, coordinator, group leader, mentor or an activist interested in organizing group youth events on the topic of natural building and solidarity you should apply here before 30th of April
- Application form can be founde HERE
