Our goal is for long-term volunteers to gain experience outside their comfort zone and learn about the possible simple and gentle way of rural life, to practice the processes necessary for life on a daily basis, to gain experience in ecological farming and construction, and to develop their cooperation and self-awareness skills.

The main focus of the planned activities is to deepen the knowledge gained through experiential exercises and learning processes of the method, tools and implementation of ecological farming and living space. By applying the permaculture design model, the ecological approach and methods that fit into the order of nature, we create a landscape use culture that increases ecological diversity, is water-retaining and regenerative, and helps the consciously cooperative lifestyle of people living in the landscape, creates healthy food, habitats and living spaces.

• We have created a 42 m diameter circular garden for growing vegetables, protected by a game fence, with beds formed along contour lines. During the gardening process from spring to autumn, we prepare beds, sow seeds, plant and stake seedlings, build a drip irrigation system, care for our plants, compost, harvest, loosen, fertilize and mulch the soil. We grow both vegetables and fruits in the garden in a polyculture system cultivated with permaculture and biointensive methods.
• We increase the fruits with noble canes grafted onto local wild plants or by planting, we take care of their game protection, fertilization, irrigation and crown-shaping pruning.
• Among our pets, we already have hens who give us our daily eggs, we feed them, water them on a daily basis, and provide them with a favorable habitat. We plan to fence our grassland areas suitable for grazing with electric fences to make them suitable for cattle.
• We create the necessary structures for our life and farming using natural methods, so we build dry-laid stone retaining walls, tapped wooden structures, we plaster with adobe, plaster and build with lime mortar, we build ecological tools, and we develop a network-independent system.

Living conditions provided for individual volunteers

• Accommodation: in the cool season (March-April, September-October) in a yurt heated with a wood-burning mass stove, in the warm season (May-August) in a glamping tent or in the cool rooms of old stone houses.
• Bathing, toilet, washing: in the frost-free season (March-October) you can use the garden hot water shower, instead of a toilet we use an outdoor compost toilet, washing is possible with a local automatic washing machine.
• Kitchen and meals: in the cool season there is a possibility to cook in the yurt, in the warm season we use the community summer kitchen, the ingredients are provided.
• Knowledge transfer and communication: we are also looking for volunteers who would like to participate in local knowledge transfer processes, or use multimedia tools (by creating images, videos, audio materials, documents) to help the widespread access of locally generated knowledge materials (know-how, storytelling) through social media platforms (facebook, instagram, …).

Date: March 20 – October 20, 2026.
Location: Cold-Hill Shelter / Pécsely / Hungary

From Seed to Harvest: Cold Hill Shelter is Looking for long term ESC volunteers in Hungary

2026-02-20

Do you want to escape the daily grind and experience the gentle pace of rural life? Are you curious about how sowing a seed turns into food or how you can build a home using natural materials? Now is your chance to immerse yourself in the daily life of Cold-Hill Shelter and apply to our long-term individual volunteering opportunity!

We are looking for you if you’d like to spend 6 months creating, learning, and growing as part of an ecologically minded, off-grid family farm and community.

When: March 20 – October 20, 2026
Where: Hideg-hegyi Menedék, Pécsely, Hungary
Details: https://bit.ly/3Osusod
Application: https://bit.ly/3ZW4ufq

Who are we looking for? Young people from Europe aged 18–30 who are open-minded and ready to take action. Someone who isn’t afraid of physical work and is happy to live in simple, close-to-nature conditions.

The project is supported by the European Solidarity Corps programme.

Which means:

• accommodation and meals are fully covered,
• travel costs are reimbursed, and
• you’ll receive monthly pocket money.

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