from 272€

Brilliant 4.7rating (16)

Agroforestry Assistant

location
1 - 50 weeks  ·  Age 17 - 50+

rating  Brilliant 4.7  · 
  Verified by Volunteer World
  Very high response rate

Highlights

  • Stunning nature, wild life, waterfalls and mountains
  • Eat a healthy plant based diet, mostly organic harvested by us and local organic farmers, reduce your impact on climate change and feel the positive change in your life!
  • Learn agroforestry farming, permaculture principles, native stingless bee keeping and help small organic farmers
  • We are 2 hours away from the beautiful Rio de Janeiro city and near many fantastic hiking trail.
  • Live among other volunteers and meet friends for life.

Especially suitable

Age 17+
Singles
Couples
Families
Groups
50+

About the program

Help and learn about syntropic agroforestry, a important way to plant food, fixate carbon, generate a biome for biodiversity,and protect soil and water sources.

We seek

nature lovers that are really committed to support and help those who are dedicated to protect wild life and its habitat, fight climate change, bring social justice to rural area and that are willing to make positive changes in their own life that will bring more healing to their body, their ...

About the program

We seek

nature lovers that are really committed to support and help those who are dedicated to protect wild life and its habitat, fight climate change, bring social justice to rural area and that are willing to make positive changes in their own life that will bring more healing to their body, their mind and the planet. The inequalities and lack of opportunities are much higher in the rural areas in Brazil and that's why so many migrated and continue to migrate to the slums/favelas of big cities and subject themselves to the oppression of violence, drug lords, militia and police.


We expect 
  • 18 hours of weekly dedication to agroforestry, wild life and  stingless native beekeeping. The schedule can be flexible to accommodate personal needs (home-office).
  • Keep bedroom and personal bathroom clean and return it clean before you leave.
  • Participate in the cleaning of the shared areas of the house (kitchen)
  • Participate in the food preparation for lunch and meal.
  • After use, leave kitchen sink and table clean for the next person to use it.
  • Commit to a healthy, minimally-processed plant based diet, bring awareness to the fact that the food that heals you also heals the planet. We avoid GMO, food from conventional monocultures that destroy the soil, kill bees, contaminates creeks and rivers and dry spring waters and brings poison to people's table. Plant (and fungi)  based diet has proved to be the healthiest diet for you and the planet, that also help fixating carbon back to the soil. 
  • Do  not smoke. I don't drink alcoholics and I expect little or no consumption of alcohol in my place. Same to any other recreational drug. Our recreation is to be present with full awareness  facing the immense beauty that wild life and natural cascades provides. 
You will learn
  • Agroforestry, permaculture concepts, native beekeeping practices, 
  • Adaptations for climate change, including tropical edible plants; food, clothing and other actions for mitigating climate change,
  • How to boost your energy with anti-oxidant rich, cancer killer plant based diet.
Your volunteering will
  • bring dignity to rural workers, fight social inequality and bring opportunities to rural areas, stopping the immigration flux of people flooding the favelas/slums of big cities. 
  •  help compensating the invaluable services that we provide to society (clean, cool and moisture the air, sequester carbon from the air, generate rain and water, protect biodiversity, protect crop pollinators)
And you will experience
  • amazing rivers and waterfalls
  • mountain trails
  • healthy and delicious food
  • exercising outdoors, campfires
  • brething pure air and drinking and bathing on  mineral spring waters





Typical day

 5:30am: We get together at the kitchen to organize kitchen, prepare breakfast and sometimes prepare food for lunch.

7am: agroforestry 
12pm: fast cooking and lunch
1pm: organize kitchen,
Depending if you want to have 2 or 3 days free, there may be some activities in the afternoon. We ask for 18hs of ...

Typical day

 5:30am: We get together at the kitchen to organize kitchen, prepare breakfast and sometimes prepare food for lunch.

7am: agroforestry 
12pm: fast cooking and lunch
1pm: organize kitchen,
Depending if you want to have 2 or 3 days free, there may be some activities in the afternoon. We ask for 18hs of volunteering per week.

It is usual to go for a trail before sunset and once in a week to lit a bonfire and fraternize with tourists and other volunteers and us. 


Free-time activities

beautiful trails to hike and creeks with waterfalls to enjoy! varieties of birds and animals to observe,  Our swimming pool is 18m long and the water is purely natural, with no chemicals. From time to time we prepare a bonfire to enjoy the night outside. 

Free-time activities

beautiful trails to hike and creeks with waterfalls to enjoy! varieties of birds and animals to observe,  Our swimming pool is 18m long and the water is purely natural, with no chemicals. From time to time we prepare a bonfire to enjoy the night outside. 


Requirements

Requirements

Minimum Age: 17 years

In order to join the program you need to be at least 17 years old on the program start date.

Language Skills

You need to speak English (intermediate level) or Portuguese (basic level)

Nationality Restrictions

No restrictions. Helping hands from all over the world are welcome.

Time Commitment

Your helping hand will be required on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 08:00 - 12:30

What's Included

What's Included

Services by Fazenda São Marcos

  • fast internet (1 person can watch a 4k video)
  • organic plant and fungi based food for you to prepare your meals in group, grown locally  by us or near organic farmers
  • 1 bedroom with bathroom for 1 or 2 (couple) people. It will be yours to keep clean.
  • warm shower
  • eletricity, propane gas
  • eco-friendly cleaning material, including soap for laundry
  • guided hiking 
  • space for home office
  • laundry machine
  • Lessons on healthy plant-fungi based diet (minimally processed, organic)
  • Lessons on agroforestry, native beekeeping, mushroom cultivation, edible mushroom identification in the forest, edible plants in the forest for you to camp or stay naked and alive in the Atlantic rainforest
  • biweekly bonfire for bonding and exchange of experience
  • We will plant trees for you to offset 1ton of CO2 of your carbon footprint.
  • Rides to Rio de Janeiro city on weekends

Accommodation

Simple, clean 3x3m (10x10ft) bedrooms with bathroom. We provide warm blankets and bedsheet. You will wake up with birds singing in your window. Never hot, never too cold at night. The fresh breeze from the forest  and mountains regulates the local weather.  



Food & Beverages

  • 90% organic plant and fungi based diet (non or minimally processed), rich in fruits and vegetables locally grown by organic farmers (here and other partners)
  • agroecological coffee. We have a vegan milk machine for preparing soy or coconut mik or any other plant based milk
  • plenty of fruits and vegetables for juices and green juices anytime.
  • We can provide water kefir if you like it.
  • organic green tea and different infusion tees available.
  • Mate herb.
  • cacau powder
  • plenty of nuts (peanut, almond, Brazil's nut, hazelnut

Internet Access

Good access at the project site

What's NOT included?

What's NOT included?

Airport Pickup at Galeao Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport

An airport pickup isn't included within the program fees either.

Flight Tickets

The nearest airport is Galeao Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport (GIG) in Rio De Janeiro. We assist you to find cheap flights to Brazil. FIND CHEAP FLIGHTS

Travel Insurance

Going abroad is an adventure and it is always best to be prepared. Sudden illness or injury, cancellation or theft - a travel insurance for Brazil provides security and is a plus to have. GET A QUOTE

Vaccines

If you are intending to volunteer in Brazil you should seek medical advice before starting your social journey. Check your required vaccinations for Brazil. VACCINE CHECKER

Details on arrival

 If you arrive on Friday, I can pick you up at any airport of Rio de Janeiro and take you to fazenda São Marcos (126km away, 2hs drive) for 150 reais (30 US dollars). Otherwise, you go to Road Station and pick a bus to Cachoeiras de Macacu and I get you there for 60 reais.

Availability
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Program fees

1 week (min. stay) 272€
2 weeks 310€
3 weeks 349€
4 weeks 388€
5 weeks 427€
9 weeks 582€
10 weeks 621€
13 weeks 737€
17 weeks 892€
24 weeks 1,164€
32 weeks 1,474€
40 weeks 1,746€
50 weeks (max. stay) 2,173€
Average fees 157€/week

Program fees

157€ per week 1 - 50 weeks Age 17 - 50+

Payment methods

Visa Master Card Maestro American Express PayPal

NO CREDIT CARD FEES


Duration

1 - 50 weeks

Deposit

The deposit is simply to reserve your volunteer placement. Payments are handled by PayPal, our trusted global payment provider. If you don't have a PayPal account, you can also pay using a credit card.


Final Payment

Your final payment will be agreed with Fazenda São Marcos during the application process. Common solutions are either via bank transfer or a cash payment at the project site.


Meet your organization

Fazenda São Marcos

Brilliant 4.7 rating (16 reviews)

Agency - founded in 1972

Verified by Volunteer World

  Very high response rate

Coordinated by

Marcus

Spoken languages: Portuguese, English

About the project

We preserve 95% of our land (~1km^2) as native tropical rainforest, generate income for local people. We also teach people ways to preserve and fight climate change.

Meet your organization

20 years ago, my parents started a major forest regeneration in our land and today we are proudly 95% native forest. Our land stays in an important area for water generation for major urban areas of Rio de Janeiro and we have 12 spring waters protected by our forest that are part of the water supply system for millions. We have borders with a important Rio de Janeiro State Park (Três Picos) that forms an important mountain range of Atlantic rainforest that protects it and its rich biodiversity. We also have borders to another important initiative REGUA.ORG, that has been reforesting thousands of hectares (and acres) of land (or dozens of km^2) and we have borders with a natural spring water company that values forest as a form of preserving water supply.   


In 2018, we faced a situation of housing a unemployed local person that decided to destroy a small part of our forest to make a conventional plantation to make a living. It was not only a unauthorized act but illegal, since Atlantic Forest is protected by law. We offered him a solution of getting a income using organic(bio) methods of agriculture on available land and cultivating practices that goes along with the forest (native fruit trees, mushrooms, native beekeeping) and respecting the environmental laws. That's how we started!  We started with this realization that we cannot do environmental preservation without including local people in the solution. We plan to become a scalable model that will multiply and 

Since November 2019 we have volunteer program (we are top hosts at Worldpackers and wwoof host for quite some time), where we educate people about agroforestry, native bees, carbon and ecological  footprint, plant and fungi based diet as a healing diet and a form of fighting climate change and environmental preservation.  In fact, we emphasize the connection of healing yourself and healing the planet, where the student/volunteer realizes not only the physical benefits from chemical free plant and fungi based diet, but also the mental benefits of living in a nature abundant environment, with less high-tec distractions, understanding and appreciating the art of organic farming with his hands and few machinery. Agroforestry farming is a perfect blend of exercising and meditation where you need to bring your presence to the moment whether you're planting a delicate seedling or using a machete. 

We are already facing climate change challenge of food scarcity and we cultivate food adapted to hotter climate like tropical edible plants that are more productive and adapted than staple foods (some of them with high negative impact in climate change like rice crops that releases a lot of methane).  

Furthermore, we fixate tons of carbon in our syntropic agroforestry method that cultivates trees  and  develops a rich soil that brings carbon down through its root/microbial system.

Many of the native plants have medicinal use and we are teaming up with Ayurveda teachers to provide workshops on the use of natural and medicinal use of plants for healing the body and cosmetic use. 

We have a in house researcher and agroforestry teacher, Alexandre de Almeida, a biologist with  Phd in ecology and specialization in birds (ornithologist), and there is on going research on biodiversity in our land.

16 reviews · rating4.7

Scott Shanley rating4.4

2023 at Agroforestry Assistant

Fazenda São Marcos enjoys a dramatic setting deep in a heavily-forested ravine at the foot of Rio's granite mountains. Being in a rare ecology of mata atlantica (Atlantic Rainforest) the biodiversity there is rightly lauded as rich and fascinating. I stayed two weeks. During the first week the ...
Antoine Van Aerde rating5

2023 at Agroforestry Assistant

If you're wondering about this opportunity, follow your gut. Whilst I wandered through beautiful Brazil, this was one of the stops I made - an unforgettable experience, counting countless stars at night around the campfire. Marcus and his brother are two remarkable people with such deep ...
Scott Shanley rating3

2023 at Agroforestry Assistant

I leave tomorrow, having spent two extremely enjoyable weeks at Fazenda São Marcos. Where to begin? Its location in the well-irrigated mountains northeast of Rio is nothing short of cinematic. The ambience is heavenly in this, a lost fragment of Gondwana. I've had this huge farmhouse practically ...
Florencia Ruiz rating4.6

2022 at Agroforestry Assistant

Google Translator: it was a pleasant experience, surrounded by nature and in contact with native animals. I learned about plant based feeding and a little bit about fruit gathering. Also beekeeping and some permaculture. --------------------------------------------------------Original review: ...
Federico Francucci rating5

2022 at Agroforestry Assistant

Fazenda Sao Marcos gives you the oportunity to experiences a hole lífe of plant bases diet and nature lifestile. You'll learn a Lot about wild edibles plants and mushrooms and also how to make recipes of them. Also you will learn about apiculture, plans and animals from the area. You can explore ...
Ana Cristina Rezende Fontes rating5

2022 at Agroforestry Assistant

Google Translator: I acquired environmental awareness, planting and harvesting experiences. Respect for the environment and animals. Interaction with other volunteers and exchange of experiences and knowledge.------------------------------------------------Original Review: Experiência ...

Location

Americas > South America > Brazil > Cachoeiras de Macacu

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Contact Marcus
  Very high response rate
Portuguese, English

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