About O Fojo
We are deeply committed to experiment what is to live an ethical and meaningful life not just for ourselves but also by holistically helping other people to experience that. Our goal is to disseminate tools and experiences for the creative and searching minds like us, to actively and consciously transform our social, ecological and economical paradigm through personal transformation.
Since 2009 we are creating practical experience in Permaculture, natural building, natural and organic agriculture. At the same time we have experienced the whole community living background, by organizing and offering innovative and high quality education for a planetary citizenship, through carefully designed events and courses.
At this moment we are redirecting the project towards the arising of an intentional community that will support the implementation of the Integral Education Center for the next five years. As we move towards this goal, we are going to co-create the pathway, tweaking and refining our very next steps and our lives to keep on making our part of the history.
For more information access our About Us
With the help of hundreds of hours of work of ourselves, friends, participants, interns, volunteers and visitors we have build steps, accesses, showers, toilets, cabins, shelters, green houses, gardens, chicken place, cisterns, and the main build structure, our mother house with natural materials and building technics, with a green roof, that is still to be finished.
At the same time we have clear the land from bumbles and other heavy weeds, we have planted many fruit trees, we have seeded many types of lupins, flowers and plants, we have established ou main garden that is now being refurbished, we have cleaned the pathway to a stream and connected this with our ponds through a tube and we have learn a lot and we have shared many many hours of knowledge and experience.
It is a peaceful and quiet place integrated in a countryside neighborhood and inside a huge eucalyptus and pine plantations region. It is a challenging but, at the same time, simple task to live here. The sky is beautiful and the energy of more than 800 people that passed by here is still building the energy of the place.
The best way to understand this is to come here and live your own experience.
For more information access our Gallery
At this moment we have a camping area where you can mount your tent and we can facilitate good mattress for you better comfort.
We have a common dinning and living room with a fireplace and a nice kitchen where we make our meals and eat together. This is also the only education room we have at the moment. This is a natural building unfinished structure with a green roof.
We have a dry toilet and a hot shower available every day, if you need. We are building two more comfortable dry toilets and urine collector. We are also building three more showers and washing area.
We also have a washing machine available for long term volunteers with no additional cost (donation based) and to the other volunteers or visitors for a minimum donation of 3 euros the machine (a good way to be mindful on using it) because it is yet a gasoline generator powered.
We have already a chicken place, a caravan, a green house (that is going to be changed), a small house were we have our tools and where we have an independent lodging for three people and we have a small cabin shelter for a couple or one person. We also have a ruin to rebuild and car parking at the entrance of the land.
We have implemented accesses and steps all over the land, we have two wells, one micro pond, one small pond, one big pond, 2 ferrocement cisterns, we have started a sweat lodge ad a small seed back/shop building.
We have a 1000 square meter food forest in implementation in a sloped area with a very interesting water harvesting system.
And we are now implementing the garden in three big huggelkultur raised beds and lots of building stuff to finish!
We are located near the villages of Alvaiázere and Ansião, in Leiria Region, 65 km from the historical city of Coimbra. O Fojo is about 180 km from Lisbon and the same distance from Oporto, the main Portugal cities.
You can arrive in Portugal by planes in Lisbon Oporto or Faro. It is much better if you arrive in Lisbon or Oporto because Faro is really at the bottom of the country, quite far from here.
Coming from Lisbon or Oporto by train?
From Lisbon at Santa Apolónia Station or Oriente Station and, from Oporto, at the Porto Campanhã Station. There you take a train to Pombal. From Pombal – 28 km from O Fojo – you have to take the bus to Ansião, at the bus station near the library that is really near the train station. There is no much buses to Ansião in Pombal so the best way is to schedule with us to pick you up there. We ask 10 euro to do this (by taxi you will spend about 30 euro).
In Ansião – 8 km from O Fojo – you can take a taxi (they ask approximately 10 euro) or schedule with us. We dont charge any money to do that but donations are welcome.
The bus travel from Lisbon or Oporto is more difficult in terms of scheduling and they do not come to Ansião. They will arrive in Freixianda or Alvaiázere. We ask 10 euro to pick you up in this locations, please schedule with us first.
Coming from Lisbon or Oporto by car?
From Lisbon or Oporto you can come from highway or by national roads, withowt tolls. We recommend the second choice.
Go to Pombal and in Pombal, take the IC-8 to Ansião.
When you arrive in Ansião, at the fireman installations roundabout, turn right and pass through a Intermarché supermarket and after 600 meters turn at right in the roundabout, directing to Alvaiázere by the national road N-348.
After approximately 7 km you will pass through São João de Brito and you keep on the same road until finding and entrance at your right side saying O FOJO 1 Macieira.
Enter here and go by this paved road always by the right (don’t enter at left just after entering this road) and keep on this road by 900 meters and enter at your left (paved road) deviation (if you go for more than 900 meters in the previous road it is because you lost the deviation).
After about 100 meters you will find two houses: at your left, a white house and at your right a yellow house. Turn right at the end of this yellow house (Rua da Nossa Senhora da Penha de França) and go for another 100 meters until you arrive to some ruins. There turn at your left in a dirt road (Caminho do Fojo) an go for 100 more meters.
Here you are. You arrived at O Fojo.
Our direction
Caminho do Fojo, nº 17
Fojo – Almoster
Alvaiázere | Leiria
Portugal
Our GPS Coordinates
39.856279, -8.460285
Have a nice trip!
PLEASE do not come at O Fojo withowt scheduling your visit with us! We dont guarantee we are there to receive you.
PLEASE do not enter at the land without permission. The dog is quite persuasive on that!
We can not guarantee your reception after that time!
If you have special situation about that please let us know in advance, by the O Fojo Mail, so we can manage your reception outside this schedule.
Volunteering at O Fojo
It is an awesome opportunity to experience what is to live in a countryside land based community in formation and, at the same time, a great occasion to observe, reflect and relate to the sensations that we are going to experiment each moment.
Here we try to apply mindfulness to all the process of doing whatever we do and this bring us much more chances to really embody the learning lessons that this period at O Fojo allows us to integrate.
It is also a good way to practice your hidden or active skills like painting or sculpturing, cooking, singing, playing, dreaming, projecting, and most of all being creative an having fun with an international team of aware people, living together in a deepening nature connection.
It will be a pleasure to have you here!
Understand our vision and decide to help us go for it with hands, hearts and heads.
Agree with the established daily and weekly schedule and commit to accomplish to it in the agreed period of volunteering.
Become a temporary community member and his/her voice is taken into account and integrated in the day by day decisions.
Understand the way we do things and try lo live this way as a valuable approach to experiment even it is not his/her way of doing things and integrates the personal lesson of it.
To work diligently for 4 periods of 1:30 hours a day, making a total of 6 hours work plus the shared tasks such washing and cleaning, some integrated in this period, some not. Saturday is a shopping and cleaning day and Sunday is a rest day.
Be available for transparency and true and be willing to personal evolution process understanding and, at the same time, understanding that the community is more important than “me”.
Be a friendly, open mind, healthy (no drugs, no tobacco, no alcohol consumption are allowed at O Fojo) and trustful people.
To meditate every morning with all the people present at O Fojo.
A volunteer that makes the commitment to stay with us for at least one month. Ideally the minimum period should be three months to six months, renewable for six months more.
A volunteer that has certain skills or wants to develop in certain skill and is able to take responsibility and leadership to focus on the the accomplishment of specific tasks with autonomy.
A volunteer that makes the commitment to stay with us for at least one to three weeks.
A volunteer that has certain skills or wants to develop in certain skill and is able to accomplish specific tasks with some autonomy, working at the same time, with specific directions given by the task focalizer.
The total amount of the period should be given to O Fojo responsible at the very beginning of this period (or monthly to the long term volunteers committed to longer time).
If you leave the place, for any reason, before the committed period O Fojo is not going to give this value back.
This volunteers will help with tasks for a minimum 3 hours a day and they will collaborate with 15 euro a day to costs of food, fuel, water, safety equipment availability like gloves and boots, toilet paper, cleaning products, personal hygiene products, maintenance and camping area and personal support to understand better what we are doing here.
At the same time we are going to create along the year, specific opportunities for the people that wants to come to visit and help us just for a weekend. Only in that moments we will accepts volunteers for two or three days only.
06:20 Wake up
06:30 Silent group meditation
07:30 Breakfast | dish washing | personal time
08:15 Morning circle | check in | daily organization
08:30 Work Session 1
10:00 Coffee break | personal time
10:30 Work Session 2 (lunch team leaves work tasks at 11:00)
12:00 Lunch | dish washing | personal time
13:30 Work Session 3
15:00 Tea break | personal time
15:30 Work Session 4
16:30 Tools, space cleaning and organization (dinner team leaves)
17:00 Personal time
18:00 Dinner | dish washing
19:00 Evening meditation (everyone at O Fojo)
19:30 Personal time or evening session (film, talk, circle, forum, creative lab, etc.)
21:30 Silence time
Note: Volunteers at O Fojo are committed to accomplish with this time table.
Monday
Building day
Tuesday
Building morning | gardening afternoon | internet day
Wednesday
Building | maintenance | improvement day
Thursday
Building morning | gardening afternoon | internet day
Friday
Gardening morning | next week’s organizing afternoon | internet day
Saturday
Market and internet morning | cleaning and space organizing afternoon
Sunday
Rest day (volunteer cooking and cleaning team scheduled on Saturday)
Note: Volunteers at O Fojo are committed to accomplish with this time table.
Please be sure you are a skilled and autonomous person that will be a real added value to our project goals.
Community Membership
Is a person that agrees with our Vision and Mission for the next 5 years and are able to commit for the one year trial to become a full member.
Full description will be informed to the applicant, month by month, during the trial periods.
The main one is the one that you apply first, for one month trial as a temporary community member and this can only happen if you are willing to apply for the one year trial.
This one month first trial is a crucial experience for both the person and for the community and follows rules and characteristics that we can only inform you personally, in a minimum week volunteer period previously accorded by both the community and the applicant.
After that period, evaluated by both the person and the community board, you are allowed to apply for more two months, and after that for three more months, and then, for the last 6 months before being able to apply for full memberships, if the evaluation of both the person and the board leads to this direction.
The other way, you can apply and commit for a volunteer period of minimum six months and after a deep evaluation bot by the person and the community board we agree that there is a possibility of a full membership appliance from the volunteer. Than we can decide for a six month temporary membership agreement. After that period the temporary member can apply to full membership, if the evaluation of both the person and the board leads to this direction.
The third one, you are an experienced Permaculturist and are totally able to fully understand what is a community commitment and apply for a six month trial. After that period the temporary member can apply to full membership, if the evaluation of both the person and the board leads to this direction.
Full commitment, full participation, full presence, full mindfulness, full ownership feeling, full responsibility and full openness to the process, as it is. To the temporary members, all the information and responsibilities of a full membership will be totally clear before committing to be a full member.
It is a serious stuff. Are you able to assume this commitment?
Wish-list
Small auto caravan
Small caravans
Motorcycles (any type)
Small tractor (any type)
Bicycles (any type)
Moto-cultivator
Chainsaws
Brush-cutters
Carpentry machinery (any type)
Any other quality tools (manual, electric or fuel power ones)