About WWOOF and the Help Exchange
On this page you'll find:
A short history of WWOOF and the
Help Exchange what they are
My experiences with WWOOF and
the Help Exchange, as a guest and host
Helping at our place, how to
get there, what to expect ...
A word of warning!
A short history of WWOOF and the
Help Exchange and what they are
Willing Workers on
Organic Farms (of WWOOF) started in 1971 in England
as a venture to help city slickers experience something of
the country and organic farming. The idea was simple and
took off rapidly, that an organic farmer would host some
city slickers, in exchange for some help around the farm.
It grew rapidly and has in the decades since become both
an international organisation with national bodies in many
countries and a wonderful form of hospitality
club in which guests are empowered through formal
expectation to contribute meaningfully to their hosts
lifestyles. That seriously empowers the guest to stay on
past the typical 2 or 3 night maximum stay enforced by
most hospitality clubs and can provide an enriching cross
cultural experience.
You'll find plenty to read about WWOOF at http://www.wwoof.org/
(the international umbrella organisation) or at http://www.wwoof.com.au/
(the Australian organisation).
The Help Exchange started 30 years later in 2001 when a
motivated Englishman with some apparent experiene WWOOFing
or otherwise helping out started a web service to connect
hosts and helpers, abandoning WWOOF's organic and farming
contexts for a fully general help out. You'll find a more
complete history by Rob, the one man show who built and
runs the site, at http://helpx.net.
My experiences with WWOOF and
the Help Exchange, as a guest and host
I grew to value WWOOF as traveller for the very reason
that it empowered me as a guest to contribute meaningfully
and aprticipate in the lifestyles of my hosts. As a host
in Australia now, helpers (our guests) are almost
exclusively international backpackers seeking the same.
Moreover, we're city slickers now (hosts) and it's not
entirely unusual to have country folk come and visit,
which is a turning of the tables of sorts (given the
origin of WWOOF lies in city slickers staying with country
folk). We're not organic farmers either, just a suburban
middle class household subscribing to organic principles
and maintaining to some degree an organic garden. All the
same WWOOF Australia
is an organisation that welcomed us as hosts and many
WWOOFers clearly value and enjoy the experience of passing
through a suburban garden setting.
Given we're not an organic farm per se, and WWOOF was lingerig int eh
technology of a printed directory, we left WWOOF and moved to teh Help
Exchange at some point. So now we're fully fledged Help Exchange hosts. See our profile here: https://www.helpx.net/host.asp?hostid=2713.
I know of few organisations more enriching and empowering
in the modern world. It exposes my small family to people
of other cultures, ensures we often have vibrant dinner
guests, get a helping hand around the house, garden and
various renovation and landscaping projects seemingly
always underway and lends our guests a chance to live in a
small suburban family environment in Hobart for a while
generally welcomed as family members (with all of the
responsibilities and benefits of that).
This inevitably involves others in our community, from
family to friends and their friends as they take an
interest in this very phenomenon and the many projects we
have running at home. WWOOFers in turn gain exposure to a
some elements of Hobart's culture through these people and
occasionally build relationships and find work or
volunteering opportunities in that way.
Helping at our place, how to get
there, what to expect ...
If you're keen to help and get
in touch we'll typically direct you here. Here's a
summary of what's useful to know:
And here is a list of work and projects currently
underway:
And because we get a lot of applications over summer, and
have had a few too many really bad experiences in amongst
the many good, we'd be really grateful if you complete
this application form and look very highly upon those who
bother:
A word of warning!
To all of those who are interested in WWOOFing of
HelpXing either as a guest or host I'll share a message
that all hospitality clubs (and WWOOF and HelpX in
particular) like to repeatedly underscore because it is at
the root of many of the few inevitably bad experiences
that hosts and guests will share.
A host is not just a place to stay and get a feed for
free (for guests) nor is a guest a source of cheap labour
(for hosts) when funds are low.
To be sure there are guests and hosts with that mind-set
and when they meet they are happy. But most hosts and most
guests in my experience (including myself) find it an
opportunity to share a part of our lives for a while in a
balanced way without leeching off of one another, without
burdening one another. When the reality of sharing
lifestyle and living space is eclipsed by the utilitarian
view of saving money, as often as not, there are
frictions. Simply because you are sharing
some lifestyle and living space and it is prudent to
consider just how much you value this as a guest and how
much of this the host offers or imposes upon your stay as
a qualifying question before deciding to visit.
We offer this experience explicitly. Helpers live in our
house and eat meals with us. They join in the the famly
life as it is, warts and all.
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