By La Bolina, Spain
We’d like to introduce Charaf (pictured above) who is officially moving to El Valle today as La Bolina’s first full-time paid member of staff! Over the last year Charaf has taken part in our training programme ‘Cultivando Futuros’, been mentored by La Bolina co-founder and agroecology trainer Habiba and taken responsibility for our piece of land in Granada. He will now be working on the land in El Valle everyday growing the ecological vegetables that we sell. “I am very happy to be working with La Bolina and to be moving from the city to live in El Valle” he says. Receiving a work contract from La Bolina means that Charaf has been granted residency to live in Spain, two years after leaving Morocco on a boat age 18. It was a suspenseful time waiting to find out if he’d received residency. I asked him how he felt when co-founder Maria told him the news: “I was very happy and content because now I can go to see my family again.”
And we couldn’t be happier: Charaf is a fast learner, dedicated worker and has a great sense of humour. We can’t wait to see what’s going to happen over the next few months as he joins us in El Valle full time. Next stop – driving lessons!
In January the wonderful Gabija and Dario joined our team as volunteer coordinators. They’ve been putting new energy and love into the ‘Hub’ – our shared house in Saleres – and are supporting many aspects of the project. Two European Solidarity Corps volunteers have recently joined us for 6 months; Nils is kick-starting our social media, making videos and helping run events and Franky’s getting her hands dirty on the land. You can read more about Franky’s experience (and challenges) in her first blog post – she’s going to be doing updates from the land so you can follow her journey.
Granada-based photographer Ana has joined the team to support communications one day per week, so if you haven’t yet, check out the new website she’s made for us.
Our recent volunteers Ana, Torild, Matilde and Jess have now left to volunteer or work with other projects – thank you all for your incredible energy!
We’ve got a great team of day volunteers who help out on the land on Thursdays. If you’re interested and can join regularly on Thursdays please get in touch – participa@labolina.org
The dedication and care of these people are producing a rather marvellous range of vegetables! The land is looking incredible – come and see for yourself!