We wish to share our experiences as participants in the Rural Entrepreneurship for You(th) project. In July 2024, we had the opportunity to visit Goloka Ecofarm within an Erasmus+ project and learn about sustainability and different businesses in a rural area.
Goloka Ecofarm is located in the mountains near Savona, Italy. It has quite a lot of land, numerous cows, as well as a nice community building, where our accommodation facilities were also located. We slept in rooms of two and had shared bathrooms and a public space to hang out, build connections and make long-lasting friendships.
We flew from Budapest to Nice and took a bus to Savona, where our hosts picked us up. We stayed there for a week. Each day addressed diverse topics, different entrepreneurs came to give presentations and/or workshops on their businesses, how they started, developed, and have maintained them. Additionally, we also had hands-on workshops, where we could try out certain activities, like cheese making, pottery, and cookie making.
We were shown how real hand-made cheese is produced. It was surprisingly simple – we used milk from the farm’s cows, boiled it to a certain degree, put coagulant inside, waited a bit, and then it could be put in shapes. Of course, the cheese needed time to set, so we could only try it on the last day.
The local community of the farm has also a business of making cookies. They have a separate room dedicated to it, called the „cookie factory”. We were shown all the steps from the beginning to the end, the packaging. After the workshop, we could taste the result of our work. Yummy! They have become our favourite cookies. We brought home several packages.
We had a presentation on beekeeping. Local beekeepers came to tell us their stories, how they started beekeeping, and how they ran their businesses. They brought some equipment as well to demonstrate their work and practices.
We went to a nearby forest, where we had a forest bathing workshop. A professional tour leader came to introduce us to this type of relaxation. It’s about switching off the mind and focusing only on the feelings we get from the surroundings; the chirping of birds, the cool breeze of the wind, the rustling leaves, etc.
We also had an art therapy session, working with clay. We discussed basic points of how art therapy works, and then each of us, trainees got a ball of clay, and we could form anything that first came to our minds and expressed our emotions. It turned out to be a very creative and fun exercise, everyone had amazing ideas, and it was very nice sharing them.
Furthermore, we had so many other activities as well, such as a TikTok workshop about promoting our businesses, cow-cuddling, and of course a beach day. 🙂
We enjoyed our involvement to its fullest capacity. What an activity!
Anna Bodor and Krisztina Bodor
