We want to promote awareness not only about environmental but also social issues. Initiating a wave of change in peoples' mindset by educating, inspiring, creating ambassadors and recruiting volunteers in our village.
Workshops will be held in subjects like Vegetarian Cooking, Permaculture, Sustainable Agriculture.
Our activities including our community cafe, will not involve money, instead people can contribute with used clothes and food that will help maintain our clothes and food bank.

Our project is in Rogil, a Portuguese civil parish in Aljezur Municipality. Population Dens. 32/km2

One of the main issues in our area is an aged population, with a low income and little social assistance, these people are so often left lonely, neglected and abandoned by society.
Another issue is that there are very few jobs available and those that exist are mostly seasonal and with low wages, meaning that families have a very tight budget and a lot of them end up in situations of financial shortfall. This creates a stressful environment in the home that can lead to other problems such as domestic violence and alcoholism, which puts children and adults at risk.
We have noticed that most initiatives, usually focus a lot on child education, animal care and environmental issues and totally forget about the social support system that needs to be in place if we want a healthy community.

We are very passionate about supporting the vulnerable people in our community, the sick, the poor and specially the elderly.
For example, we have found that one of the elderly peoples main needs is simply company, someone to talk to and listen to them, maybe a stronger hand to carry their bags of shopping home. Other times they have pressed the wrong buttons on their TV or mobile phone and need a younger person to help them fix these.
Helping more of these people and spreading the spirit of volunteering is one of our goals, we will try and recruit members of the public to assist us on this mission.
The gap between generations also needs to be reduced by creating opportunities that incentivize communication and dialogue between them.
One day we will all be old and need a helping hand.

On a small scale we are dooing as much as we can at the moment and are already implementing some of the things described in our project.
The next step is to register our Non Profit Organization. We have already recruited a local Lawyer that has offered to help us with the legal steps of our project, she is also part of the Child Protection Commission in Aljezur, making her a potential person for our board of members. We have already initiated this step and are deciding who we are going to invite to be part of our founding board members. As soon as this is concluded, making us a registered NPO, and we have obtained funds to buy the last essential things we need, we will be ready to finally publicize the project and open our space to the public.

If our idea got selected, we would gain the momentum to more rapidly become an active player in our local community. Success for us would be that we had managed to create a network of allies and partners, not only institutional but also private citizens, and that by dooing so we had managed to achieve some of our main goals, which are to help those in need and to educate and promote awareness not only about environmental but also social issues. Becoming a voice that challenges, inspires and helps create a wave of change in peoples consciousness.

I would say that in today's society, movements to create awareness and change in subjects such as sustainability, ecological issues, regenerative agriculture, social exclusion, etc. are still a minority, and even more in areas like ours.
For this reason, if there is any chance to create an impact in society which promotes change in the system, we need to work closely with our local community, local governmental and non-governmental organizations creating networks and partnerships that not only involve these people that are not aware or interested in these issues, but we also have to contact with other groups of like-minded people that are scattered around working towards their small ecosystems behind closed doors not creating much impact, and try to connect with them becoming real allies.

Due to my parents lifestyle and the education I was given, from a young age I felt a moral obligation towards the less fortunate.
This feeling stayed with me while I grew up in a world that moves further and further away from itself, where most people only worry about their own needs and turn a blind eye towards the social problems of the most vulnerable people. Some of these people live far away in Africa others in the Apartment next door.
We are trying to do our part while also sowing seeds of awareness, hoping that people start to realize that the surrounding issues are not just someone else's responsibility to deal with. We all have to focus some of our energy, helping, feeding, educating and inspiring others to be the change, by living conscious, responsible and sustainable lives!

Office Expenses 2000€
Kitchen/Cafe Equiment: 7000€
Garden Work: 3000€
Building Storage Warehouse: 4000€
Renewable Energy: 8000€
Building and Maintenance work: 5000€
Greenhouse: 1000€
Irrigation and Water Reservoir: 3000€
Vehicles Repair and Purchase: 9000€
Trailer Purchase: 2000€
Tractor Purchase: 5000€
Outdoor Wood fired oven and BBQ: 1000€

Any kind of constructive comments and reviews are welcome. We are always open to positive input, and willing to adapt our project if needs be.
Feedback interchange from others people that have a similiar project to ours or that are initiating one, would be amazing.