We are around about 15 people (adults and children, including guests and helpers) who are living as a community on a beautiful piece of land near the river Saale in the area Franzigmark. Here we are working on all different kinds of projects.
Our land, which we rented in 2016 and then bought in the beginning of 2018 as a nonprofit organisation, is next to a lot of beautiful green space and a few neighbors.
Since than we invested a lot of time, energy and love to restore some of the existing buildings, and cleared up the land from the trash and junk from the past. We are giving birth here to a new alternative lifestyle as a socio-cultural, eco-friendly community doing our best to live in harmony with each other and with nature.
The main motivation and drive behind all our actions is to live sustainability.
Therefore, we started to renovate the sheds in an ecological and aesthetical way, turning them, step by step, into open workshop spaces. Also, the main house, which we use as our common kitchen and dining area at the moment, is still under construction and is waiting to get a second floor on top, which will be used as a seminar room.
In our community we live by a horizontal decision-making structure, where we learn a lot from each other in our daily lives. We are thriving and evolving with many different kinds of creativity. Mainly in the fields of art, music, social work, carpentry crafting and building. All these skills come together in our common living as a group. They are also visible in the construction processes of all of our building projects.
So far, we have a permanent pottery workshop, a permanent wood and metal workshop, a hangdrum workshop, where you can learn how to build hangdrums. We have a sewing wagon on the land, with several sewing machines and threads in all colors your heart might wish for. We also have a organic gardening section and resident professionals from theater/clowning/acrobatics.
We try to keep our ecological footprint as small as possible by recycling and upcycling all different kinds of materials. We also try to spread more awareness and sensitivity about sustainability in our environment.
Another field of attention is to strengthen and support the biotopes and natural habitats in our direct surrounding. We have several beehives on our land, where we do beekeeping in a gentle and species appropriate way. Therefor they supply us with fresh organic honey. We planted a common community garden which is supplying us with herbs, spices and vegetables as well as old varieties of fruits which we planted in order to maintain these old species. By consulting with the environmental agency and local institutions, like BUND, we help to maintain dry and semi-dry land as well as natural orchards.
We are opening up a space here to share our experiences and learning processes in workshops and seminars to everyone who is interested. It’s a place where we come together with our neighbors, people from the countryside; as well as urban people, to share and discuss the most important topics of our time like sustainability and living in harmony with each other. Since 2016 we are hosting neighborhood meetings to gather and exchange to create a positive atmosphere in our direct environment. In 2021 we’ve started our youthwork which combines the different aspects of the project.
We are constantly building and extending our infrastructure and therefore more than happy about helping hands. Let us know when you are interested in joining us in this experiment for some days or even a while.