Workshop 2014 - Earth Home Thailand (Maejo Baandin) แม่โจ้บ้านดิน

Natural Building Workshop at Pa-Chi-Wang-Daeng-Witthaya School

November 10-30, 2014

The family of EarthHome are excited to invite you to join a natural building workshop at our local village school. Our goal is to build a meeting hall/snack shop where we can promote healthy eating to the students and teach them the importance of filling their bodies with nutritional goodness. The building will also double up as a meeting area for the local community to come together and for events to be held with parents and teachers. The build will be broken down into 2 ten day workshops. In both workshops you will learn a variety of different building techniques, put these techniques into practice from day one and work with local Thai villagers in truly beautiful natural surroundings. By the end of the workshop you will become a thriving natural builder, have made great connections and friendships and have helped create a building that will make a huge impact to the village and the diets of the next generation.

What will you learn? We will teach you all it takes to create a beautiful building out of mud, from foundations to orientation, roofs to wall structures you will gain hands-on practical experience throughout the workshops. Our main building material will be adobe bricks, a time honored technique which is perfect for our Thai climate, all over materials will be sourced locally and be environmentally friendly. Here are some of the things we will cover during the workshop;

Making and laying adobe bricks
Foundations and earth works
Installing windows and doors
Natural plasters and paints
Earth art and sculpting with mud
Carpentry and woodwork
Roofing and insulation

But building is not all you will learn during your stay with us. You will also become a part of our family and a part of our local community. You will learn how we live a holistic lifestyle; one that is in tune with nature and which nurtures are bodies and minds. You will see how it is possible to live a more self-reliant lifestyle, grow organic food and create a balance of harmony where work and life are combined and enjoyed. Our goals for this build are ambitious but we feel confident that with a strong team and lots of enthusiasm we can achieve anything. What will the work schedule be? On Monday the 10th of Nov we will meet 2 pm. at Earth Home Thailand (MaeJo BaanDin) . This will give you time to settle in and have a tour of our land before dinner and later an opening circle to get to know one another. The practical session will begin the next day. Breakfast will be served at 7:15am, before this there is time for yoga, meditation or a morning swim if you wish. We will have a short briefing on the tasks of the day before heading to the village for a day of building. As the house build moves on so will the work tasks, we will develop our skills and assess our progress as the days go by, learning from one another, solving problems and overcoming challenges. Lunch will be served at 12:30 at the school. Please let us know in advance if you have any specific dietary requirements. The building day will finish around 5pm, if we are ahead of time with the work schedule we can take a half day or finish early and enjoy some evening activities like Thai cooking, massage, Thai boxing or spa treatments. We can also head to the reservoir for a swim before dinner at 7pm and free time to relax after.

Why are we doing this specific build? We are doing this build as we are sad at seeing the effects of what a poor diet is doing to our children. With more and more western influence in our village children are constantly snaking on high sugar processed food; causing health problems, poor dietary habits and lack of concentration at school. We want to teach the children and parents about healthy eating and nurturing the body with nutritious food that we make ourselves from home grown natural products. The space will also be used as a meeting area for teachers and parents to get together.

Where will you stay? You will stay at Earth Home, Thailand in Mae Jo village, surrounded by beautiful mountains and rice fields. We have 9 hand built adobe houses to stay in if you wish for a little more privacy and luxury and a beautiful big dormitory also. We will provide all the bedding you need for a comfy stay with us. This will be an amazing opportunity to feel how beautiful it is to sleep in an earth built home, listening to the sounds of nature as you drift off to sleep.

How much will it cost?

The fee is 650 THB (approximate 20 dollar) /person/day. The price includes stay at Earth Home Thailand and 3 healthy meals a day. Money from this fee will also be donated to the build and the conservation of Si Lanna National Park. The natural building will take 20 days, you can join us full time or part time*. Full Time 10 Nov – 30 Nov 2014 20 days 12,000 THB/workshop Part Time – * at least 5 days* 650 THB/day/person

To register for this course we would like you to pay a deposit of 3,000 Baht approx $100 please contact; earthhomethailand@gmail.com for information on how to make this payment

What will I need to bring?

Work clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty

Towel

Flip flops are fine to wear on the building site – bring close toed shoes if you wish

Long sleeve shirt and long trousers for the evening – it gets quite cold in the evenings in Nov so a jumper is also a good idea

Mosquito repellent

Natural soap

Swimwear

We will be working with our local village so it is important to dress respectfully of Thai culture – please cover shoulders at all time and do not wear very short sexy style shorts or skirts.

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