1. What is ESC
2. Erasmus/ESC – Who are we
3. Being a volunteer at Hästekasen
4. Long ESC
5. Team ESC
6. Methods and traditions
This is an European Union funded project. Small scale farm and adventure center in Sweden. Outside, dirty, practical work for practical people in beautiful nature.
You will work, and live at the same place. The community living is not officially part of the volunteer work, but you have to live here and follow the rules of the community. Make sure you check out these rules before you accept.
Apply here
Hastekasen PIF
Hästekasen Facebook photos
Read about our “green” approach
Are we self sustainable? Not really. Read more.
How many are we
Wintertime there is minimum 4-8 persons living at Hästekasen including volunteers. Some winter months we close down.
Spring autumn there will most likely be 8-12 (+10 May and Sept) people living at the farm.
During summer there will be lots of volunteers and visitors every weekend, totaling 25+ people living here. With the neighbors farm 50 meters away, we may well be 30+ people here on a weekend during summer.
People often living at Hästekasen and neighbors:
Sebastian,, Jacob, Maximum, Olha, Boo, Agne, Ulla, Maria, Aysan, Jorn
Sometimes:
Patrycja, Jakob, Parissa, Kolja, Malva
And you might see:
Esra, Magdalena, Yana, Anja, Anna, Sofia, Rolf, Kadri,, Manuel, Edoardo, Andreas,, Valentina, Amen, Zorka, Albin, Sirios, Panagiotis…
HFA is a different host. We have no employees. Nobody is paid to take care of volunteers (like some bigger organizations or schools, or youth centers e t c).
This is NOT a school. We offer no courses!
Finally remember – we are not “hippies”, this is not a consensus-community. We are green entrepreneurs focused on economic solutions. It is about employability and entrepreneurship.
Why we do this
We as a society has serious issues to solve the coming generations in the areas of ecology, energy and maybe economy (in the sense that the economic system is based on debt upon debt). We are in desperate need of new ideas on how to have a reasonable standard of living in a world without cheap energy from fossil fuels. And in the middle of all this is the issue of food. All civilizations are built on their capacity to produce food. So far food has come from soil, and now our soil is under severe threat – erosion, degradation, desertification, flooding. And our food production/distribution are based on oil (fertilizers are made out of fossil fuel)
We must not forget that our activities take place in a socio/economic background of a Europe that has rising unemployment, probably due to losing jobs to Asia, and due to higher automatization and an abundance of workers (population growth). We are also living in an era of fast globalization and its immense impact on our society. This has caused migration and challenges of national and cultural identity.
In the middle of all this The Hästekasen farm collective exists.
We also include some of our former volunteers in activities:
Projects/Volunteers
Project EVS 2013 – 3 (Zsofie, Elize, Davide)
French project -2 (Laure, Coline)
Project EVS for 2014-2015 – 6
(Kaisa, Fran, Rhiannon, Johanna, Eliott, Mikaela, Stef)
Turkish project – 2 – (Selin, Gulche)
Project ESC 2016-2017 – 8:
(Julia, Simon, Martyna, Delphine, Anton, Amen, Grete, Jorge)
French EVS (Adice): – 1 (Laura)
1 months ESC oct 2017- 10:
(Geoffrey, Theresa, Eszti, Cristine, Nat, Natalia, Egelin, Anna, Gisela, Elena)
Project ESC 2018, Long EVS – 6:
(Alex, Carina, Kirke, Giacomo, Konstantin, Lillyangela)
French EVS 2018 (Adice & Parcour) – 3: (Nico, Pia, Sami)
Short ESC, July 2018 – 10: (Brandon, Micha, Michau, Alexandra, Sophie, Helga, Katinka, Clara, Nicolas, Naomi).
Short ESC, Sept 2018 – 10:
(Maite, Gabriel, Dina, Agi, Zorka, Zhenya, Elena, Gabor, Dorota, Geremy)
Other volunteers: Freja, Pieter, Sara, Brownie, Jakob, Nico, Johanna, Åsa, Andrea, Max, Manon, Raphael, Benoit, Clara, Frederike…
Long ESC march-> 2019 – 5: (Edoardo, Michal, Berta, Simon, Clara)
Short ESC, May 2019- 10+1: (Armin, Mateusz, Nicolas, Olga, Dimitrii, Laura, Berta, Amandine, Jean Thomas, Greta, Benjamin (2 months))
Team ESC July 2019 – 11: (Kadri, Miriam, Alba, Lili, Goshia, Maria, Masha, Mina, Chris, Oloph, Leonardo)
Team ESC Sept 2019 – 11+1: (Dilara, Mathias, Mariam, Ruslan, Benjamin (2 months), Romain, Olga, Gerard, Kateryna, Johanna, Giacomo, Matteo)
Long ESC 2020: (Kinga, Petra, David, Zhenya, Esra, Maggie).
Team ESC – July 2020 – 11: (Lea, Manuel, Gery, Valentina, Roger, Marlon, Guillem, Anais, Parissa, Luca, Sasha).
Team ESC – Sept 2020 – 12: (Katarzyna, Cecile, Sofia, Thomas, Stacy, Calogero, Melvin, Esra, Jolina, Ceren, Rosa, Maggie)
Team ESC – May 2021 – 14: (Malvina, Tomasz, Anna, Csenge, Eo, Natasha, Tara, Zainab, Luis, Hannah, Emma, Bryan, Bernard, Abel)
Long ESC 2021 – 7: (Lisa, Luis, Thomas, Stacy, Hanna, Adrian, Martyna…).
Team ESC – July 2021 – 12: (Maximum, Noémie, Valentina, Sanne, Lars, Haneen, Karolina, Nazar, Natha, Kolja, Sasha, Martina)
Team ESC – Sept 2021 – 12: (Minna, Eli, Guiseppe, Furkan, Maria-J, Lila, Jane, Felix, Jalan, Lea, Lavante, Tania).
Long ESC 2022: (Igor, Malva,
Team ESC May 2022:
Team ESC July 2022:
Team ESC Sept 2022
Team ESC May 2023
Team ESC July 2023
Team ESC Sept 2023
…and 400+ participants in Youth Exchanges since 2015.
Our project is very popular, 100´s of people apply.
Our “green” approach is described here
We will keep in mind the key competences stated by the EU youth program.
– Social and civil skills.
– Communication in different languages, incl our own.
– Mathematical and scientific skills
– Digital skills
– Skills in learning
– Entrepreneurship
– Cultural awareness
VISION
Hästekasen Farm – south of the stream in cooperation with the north part. Founded: 2010 (Bohuslän, Uddevalla Municipality)
Community purpose in order of priority:
1) Create conditions for habitation and self-sufficiency on and of the land, based on simple lifestyle. (Economy)
2) Promote personal development / health. (Psychology)
3) The project should strive to be ecologically sustainable. (Ecology)
4) The land/resources should be be managed as a ownership cooperative, with both private and common areas, in cooperation with volunteers / visitors and, if possible, in cooperation with the local area. (Sociology)
Governance
– Owners / investors in the co-ownership will according to shares take the overall long-term decisions / priorities in tune with the vision.
– The vision can not be changed regardless of what new members / owners want. Majority voting can not change the vision / purpose e t c.
– Members / visitors / volunteers take short-term priorities based on primarily their expertise and their time investment in the project (short term / long term).
– All decisions should be measured by whether they work effectively towards this vision (the four goals).
– Private projects may be allowed as long as they go in tune with the vision.
There should be room for the individual and personal as long as it does not go against the vision. Activities will include regular meetings that should lead to cooperation.
Work and activities should be characterized by awareness and mental presence. Learning and experience will be an obvious target, among others. The functional work should also involve aesthetic aspects.
If possible, simpler technique to go before the complex, the traditional can go before the modern, if there are advantages. Activities should take place close to nature.
