EduWWOOF Proposal - May 13, 2008

For over 30 years WWOOFing has contributed to the knowledge and understanding of biological farming methods on an informal basis. EduWWOOF is a way of giving this informal learning some structure, without interfering with the fundamental objective of WWOOF, which is to get people involved in organic production.

Thanks to Holger Kahl from OANZ, Jim “The Dirt Doctor” O’Gorman and Seager Mason from Bio-Gro for their continuing help and support.

Please add any feedback and ideas as a “comment” below.

The Aims of EduWWOOF are to:

  1. Provide a direct link between WWOOFers with a true interest in organic training, such as NZ and overseas tertiary students fulfilling practical work requirements of their course, and the hosts who can provide the knowledge and experience.
  2. Enhance and recognise the training and experience WWOOFers receive from their hosts.

Criteria to Become an EduWWOOF Host:

  1. Be Certified Organic (or via some form of exemption from certification?)
  2. Be able to provide appropriate tuition and experience in a variety of organic topics
  3. Be able to relate to and communicate effectively with WWOOFers

Criteria for EduWWOOFers:

  1. Commit to a minimum period (at least 2 weeks?) of tuition on each farm.
  2. Maintain a daily logbook of activities and topics covered.

Monitoring:

An independent certifying body (such as Bio-Gro) would be contracted to:

  1. Certify, against agreed criteria, a host’s suitability to becoming an EduWWOOF host.
  2. Produce a report (certificate) for each WWOOFer, based on the feedback from the host(s) and the WWOOFer’s logbook

Funding:

WWOOFers are the direct beneficiaries as they receive the EduWWOOF “stamp of approval” or “qualification” so would likely carry the bulk of the costs.

A fee to cover assessment of host’s and WWOOFer’s feedback and to produce the resulting “certificate” or “report” would need to be evaluated.

A fee to cover the initial assessment of a host’s suitability to becoming an EduWWOOF host.

6 Comments so far…

Lindsey Warf Says:

16 May 2008 at 5:29 pm.

I think it is important to mention/remind wwoofer hosts who apply to evaluate if they actually have the time to put into teaching wwoofers these skills before they sign up. They might have the skills and not the time to share them.

I’ve been wwoofing where the host has plenty of skills, but sadly have way too much going on to really extend their energy to sharing their knowledge as well.

I’m really excited that EduWwoof is going through. It should make things a lot easier for everyone once it takes off!

Angela Lobach Says:

19 May 2008 at 3:35 pm.

I agree with Lindsey. The commitment should be coming from both sides.

Also, as far as ‘eligible’ Wwoofers, would it ONLY be limited to tertiary students studying within the field? I myself am not studying in any farming/engineering/scientific area, but EduWwoof is something I would really be interested in partaking in.

I think EduWwoof is a really great idea, and I am glad to see it materializing!

Katherine Says:

20 May 2008 at 11:58 am.

For me the value of an EduWWOOF scheme would be in helping match hosts and wwoofers – wwoofers who are particularly keen to learn about organic growing can identify hosts who are keen to pass on their knowledge. Hosts and wwoofers seem to have many differing motivations for participating in the scheme, so the more information like this that is provided, the more likely matches are to be successful. At the moment the host descriptions vary in how useful and accurate they are. Some third-party agreement that a host is knowledgable enough and good enough at teaching to be an EduWWOOF host would be valuable in this respect. That could just be done informally within WWOOF rather than involving an external body such as BioGro, particularly if the host was Bio-Gro certified so it was only their teaching ability that was being judged.

I fear that formalising the system to involve certification of hosts, log-book keeping by wwoofers and awarding of a qualification would be a huge amount of work for little gain. The value of such a certificate would depend entirely on how much it was respected by people judging the wwoofer’s qualifications. I think that for the certificate to have more significance than the wwoofer’s responses to a few well-aimed questions, a lot of resources would have to be invested in building up the credibility of the scheme. There is also a risk of putting off wwoofers who would find the preparation of a log-book for submission quite challenging, even though they may have good growing skills. If they weren’t going to apply for the certificate, would they not be able to stay with an EduWWOOF host? And if the hosts had to write a report, that could be quite an imposition so potentially good teachers might be put off becoming EduWWOOF hosts.

I think that the informality of the WWOOF scheme and its reliance on trust are strengths. The EduWWOOF scheme could be a valuable development but it shouldn’t lose those strengths.

That’s just my opinion on the matter! I look forward to seeing how this develops.

Sol Morgan Says:

23 May 2008 at 12:20 pm.

Like the ideas on Edu WWOOF. Perhaps as Katherine says keeping it simple is the key point here. Why not just create a competency certificate that lists various tasks etc that Host can simply fill in and perhaps registered with WWOOFNZ. As for ensuring host are certified I think thats a bit exclusive and excludes many knowledgeable/ experienced hosts. Perhaps hosts can submit themselves and have another host second their request would be enough via website? Keep in touch.

inge Says:

14 July 2008 at 10:07 pm.

I have mixed feelings about this proposal. On one hand it is a step in the right direction of getting better motivated wwoofers and avoiding the cheap accomodationseekers on the other hand I feel the commitment of a host is largely out of balance compared to the commitment of the wwoofer. It springs to mind that institutes where you as a novice can live, learn and play require a fee to be paid. Wwoofing is very much to me an exchange of skills and I enjoy having skilful wwoofers around but don’t want to commit to host a wwoofer who has a right to two weeks tuition.

admin Says:

19 August 2008 at 11:54 am.

Posted by Jennie, Windsong Organic, Marlborough.
I can see why this idea has evolved; we’ve been Biogro certified and a wwoof host for over 20 years now, and have seen a change in wwoofers from those travellers interested in learning about organics/farming to now days when the largest percentage are young folk wanting a cultural exchange/cheap way of travelling. We certainly prefer the former types and do our best to weed those ones out from the applications and enjoy sharing our knowledge with them . However rather than “providing experience in a variety of organic topics” we can only teach about perennial fruit growing, and that is only at break times, since we always struggle to keep up with harvesting. Also while it’s great to have a good wwoofer stay on the orchard for an extended period, we’re reluctant to agree to more than a week until we meet them.
Also the organic auditors seem to have enough on their plates currently, and I imagine the costs of having them involved would be prohibitive.

I think an alternative that would not be so formal would be for Wwoof to be more strict with the division of hosts in the wwoof book. Then wwoofers that want a truly organic farm experience can choose those farms that are truly organic operations. Other travellers that want a cultural exchange or cheap way of travelling can then choose non-organic farms/homes/backpackers that just want any help.