PROJECT BULGARIA
Living the Alternatives
About ...
When I first set up this blog in 2010 the main idea was to document our year away: an experimental lifestyle change. For some years now I have been interested in exploring various alternatives with a particular interest in alternative education and voluntary simplification of our lives; living a lower impact lifestyle with more quality time and a greater feeling of community and connectedness. A series of seemingly unrelated events over the past few years created the opportunity for us to take a whole year off work. We bought a small homestead in a Bulgarian village which is where we were based for most of that time. There we homeschooled our 8 year old daughter and experienced first hand various alternatives to the 'normal' lifestyle we had previously. It was an amazing and very enriching experience, though practicalities decreed that the year would come to an end and we would have to return to some kind of a 'normal' life again including going back home to Israel: to work, to other family commitments and a return to school for our daughter. However, I feel we have evolved and our lives will never be quite the same again. The more I learn the more I realize we are definitely not alone. Thousands of people all over the world are waking up to the realization that to take more control of our own lives there is a need first to simplify them, voluntarily. Although ostensibly we have returned to the same reality that we left before our trip our mindset has changed and with it there has been a reduction in associated stress.
Our home in Bulgaria has now become the focus of another project - an educational one, which is a subject very dear to my heart. Each summer we plan to open our home to families who will come to share some of our vision. The project is totally not-for-profit (in the financial respect - of course we hope that all sides will definitely profit from it - but the gain will be in personal enrichment and empowerment, not things that can be quantified in monetary terms).
We have a couple of simply furnished rooms where we accommodate our visitors. In the future we hope to convert our barn space and a hay-loft into additional sleeping areas. Since we have a young daughter we also want to provide social and educational activities for her and our plan is to involve our visitors in these too. The ideology of the project is a mutual sharing of skills and of any other abundance we have.
For more details about just how this works in practice check out our 'participate' page.
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