Volunteer at Keela Permaculture Farm in Portugal

We count on people to help keep the place growing, happy and alive.

Volunteers planting trees — Photo: Volunteers are making a compost pile.

Volunteer date Options:

We prefer our volunteers to start on set dates so that we can welcome you together and give you a tour. In addition to the founder, co-teacher, and 2-4 apprentices, we typically have between two and four volunteers here. However, we also run permaculture courses with additional staff and students on the farm.

Below are the preferred start and end dates; staying for a shorter time may be possible, which would mean leaving on an optional end date.

2025 Dates

We are fully booked for 2025 volunteers however have some space left on our November courses.

For December and January, we are looking for a responsible couple or an individual who is comfortable being alone. You would have our communal house to yourself and would help us keep the farm running, allowing us to spend some time renovating our home without having to manage a group of volunteers or course participants. Ideal for someone who aspires to live off the grid one day. Option to stay on longer and join the management team for 2026. Apply below if interested

2026 Dates

You may apply to volunteer at keela at any time but we prefer that you start and finish on the following dates:

2026 Start Dates	Optional end date	End Date
9 February	20 Feb	15 March
30 March	3 April	11 May
25 May	29 May	28 June
12 July	1 Aug	9 August
23 August	12th Sept	28 September
12 October	16th Oct	22 November

Volunteers helping build our straw bale house

One Tree Hill — We have good views, relaxing spots, no noise pollution, stars and the sound of nature all around us

What is included when you volunteer at our permaculture and yoga farm:

Ingredients for three meals per day
Get closer to the food you eat
Practice farm-to-table cooking
Yoga or workout classes. (Usually, we rotate between the two)
See permaculture systems in action
Time to relax, unwind and get back to nature
Learn new skills in permaculture, natural building, healthy and sustainable living
2 days off to relax or visit local places, usually, once per month, we spend one of these mornings helping local communities and farms
Experience being part of a community!
Make new friends

What is expected of you

Work the required hours (as below)
You start on the set dates, so you can be part of a group
Physically stong
Mentally stable
Have a positive attitude.
Assist with tasks to help our courses run smoothly
Look after our tools and equipment as if they were your own
Willing and interested to learn and work hard
Assisting with community tasks (cooking, cleaning, lighting fire,s etc)
Take on one small farm task as a responsibility that you do 7 days a week, such as watering a garden bed, looking after the chickens, lighting a fire, managing compost worms

Volunteer working hours

5 hours of farm work per day and 2 days off per week.
You will be provided with food to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breaks, making drinks, cooking your breakfast, and dinner are not part of your work hours; however, cooking lunch is part of your work hours. If you prefer, you can prepare a large lunch so you don’t need to make dinner and eat the same thing. To ease the burden of cooking, you cook in rotation with the other volunteers.
To ease the burden of cleaning, we coordinate the volunteers to clean their spaces on a Friday afternoon together.
Cleaning your accommodation, practising self-care, and maintaining the cleanliness of the spaces you use are also not part of your work hours.
During the days off, you will still need to prepare your own food and clean up after yourself; however, this is also done on a rotation with the other guests.
Sometimes, we may need to work more hours on a given day to complete a job. In such cases, we can take off the extra hours the next day or accumulate them and take an extra day off.

Usually on the last night, we make our pizzas in the wood-fired oven for a closing party

volunteer permaculture — We have areas to eat and hang out both inside and outside

Community Facilities

Community straw bale house – a large house with a fully functional kitchen, dining room and chill-out area, charging stations, a projector for movie nights and free WiFi
Yoga deck with a view
Outside hang-out areas: stone circle, BBQ area, food forests.
Long drop vermiculture compost toilet
Washing machine (1 EUR peruse including organic washing liquid)
3 showers: 1 Indoor shower room with wood-fired hot water in a tropical greenhouse, 1 outside solar shower open to nature, 1 natural waterfall (cold shower and only during winter and spring)
45 acres (18 hectares) of land to walk with many chill-out spots, hammocks and viewpoints
2 dogs, 3 cats and 9 chickens to interact with daily 🙂

We have an inside shower powered by wood and this outdoor solar shower

Local Village

The village is small and quiet and has a cafe with a small convenient shop (with free wifi) and is a 25-minute walk from our farm.

A volunteer collecting out daily fresh salad from the garden

Food

We are mostly vegetarian, but we can cater for strict vegetarians and vegans if required. We can offer occasional meat from our own animals as well.
Most of our food is grown on-site but others are locally sourced.
We can also cater for most allergies, including gluten, lactose etc. Gluten-free products tend to cost slightly more than normal, so we charge EUR 10 extra per week if you like this option.