SB: Re: South Africa-Contacts Needed

["Huff 'n' Puff Constructions" <huffnpuff@shoal.net.au>]

G ' day Balers

Back in Ganmain for a while stopped travelling for a rew
weeks and trying to catch up with the inbox.  Receievd this
email whilst we were away and I wonder if any of you have
contacts in South Africa for this couple?

Kind regards The Straw Wolf.


Hello,

My name is Simon, I’m writing to you on behalf of me and my
girlfriend
Ishka. We were given your name and address by Jolien in
Amsterdam, who is
a good friend of ours that we met when she came to help us
build a
strawbale house at an orphan children’s summer camp in
Romania.

The reason we’re contacting you is because we are coming to
South Africa
at the end of July and staying for six months. Obviously
we’re going to
travel around to see the sights, but we don’t just want to
be tourists:
we’ve both done lots of voluntary work before and we want to
find a nice
project in South Africa to get involved with.

As well as the strawbale house in Romania and another one in
Spain, I
have experience co-ordinating projects (an environmental
activists
gathering in Romania, a book on sustainable communities, an
‘infocafe’ in
Amsterdam), I’m used to living abroad (Czech Republic,
Romania and
Netherlands) and I’ve lived and worked on organic farms
before. I have a
lot of experience with web page design, layout work for
books and
magazines and I’m also a very keen photographer.

Ishka - who is Polish - lived on an eco-community in
Scotland, studied
art history and photography (currently studying at
Dartington College of
Arts in Devon), and also has a lot of experience with
co-ordinating and
editing an alternative lifestyle magazine called
Greenpepper. Last year
Ishka spent six weeks in South Africa working on issues
around HIV/AIDS
and communities and produced a magazine about this.

We are going to be on a very low budget, so ideally we’d
like to find
somewhere where we can work in return for accommodation, and
possibly
also food. Originally we wanted to help build some strawbale
houses in
Waterberg on a farm owned by the daughter of someone I met
in England
(John Burrows), but we have not heard back from him and it
seems our
contact details for him are out of date. Our idea was to
help build the
houses and document the project, making a leaflet and
webpage to help
spread the idea of SB building in Africa.

We’re interested in anything from manual work on organic
farms to helping
out with theatre productions, eco-building to designing
webpages. We both
have lots of experience of publishing, writing and
photography, as well
as fundraising for these kind of things. We can give
workshops, work with
kids, do computer stuff, we’re enthusiastic... We have heard
of Amelia’s
‘strawphanage’ and wondered if anything is happening with
that?

So if you know of anything or have any ideas, or you know
someone who
could help us out and use our help, please get in touch as
soon as
possible (we’re flying out to Johannesburg on the 26th of
July).

Here’s our address in England (until early July):
14 Brook View, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 5FH.
Telephone:
+44-(0)1803-865427 (we can call you back)
Email:
pieman66@yahoo.com

We look forward to hearing from you, and hopefully meeting
you on your
side of the world!

Ishka Michocka and Simon Blackbourn






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