Tateya

Name: Tateya
Start: 2019-05-11
End: 2026-12-10
Location: Nagano, Japan

Code: 20251107-75af-4815-a261-a8979b78148a Copied

Japan Farming Environment Manual work Social work Farming Environment +2 Fixed dates

About the project

Tateya

📝 Detailed information

🏢 About the local organisation

This project is actively working for SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDGs 10 (Reduced Inequalities), organized together with Kyodo Gakusha (since 2015 here), a cooperative community where about people with various backgrounds such as mentally disadvantaged, people who are tired of city life, who wants to learn farming, just want to live in the nature, etc. They have 5 communities in Tokyo, Nagano and Hokkaido and grow animals and vegetables in an ecological, organic way with utilizing bacterium and charcoal. Tateya Farm has 40 members and NICE started LMTV projects here since 2014. NICE also organizes workcamps and LMTV projects in Maki and Shintoku farms of Kyodo Gakusha. *Outcome of this project: In 2025, 4 mid term volunteer for 1-2 months greatly contributed to harvest rice which was difficult to finish by the time they needed without volunteers! There was also nice exchange between Community people and vols. through Yoga and Mindfulness. Please see the presentation of the camp leader for the IVS contest in Japan https://www.slideshare.net/nice-workcamp/e4-54764427 (only Japanese for the moment, but you can at least enjoy the pictures!)

💼 What the programme involves

Volunteers will help their organic farm (harvesting/ threshing rice, planting vegetables, taking care of animals, etc.) and their house work especially cooking. Volunteers will also carry the things in the mountain to the Maki farm and harvest rice there. Be ready to work for quite a long time (06:00-18:00 with some brakes) and hard. It'd be surely good exercise to make your body more healthy!

🏠 Accommodation on site

Shared room in the building for the volunteers and a few members, 5 min. walk from the farm. Meals will be cooked by volunteers together with the community people by turns. Sleeping bag is not necessary. There is limited Wifi.

📍 About the location

Otari village is a small village located in the region of stunning natural beauty in the northern part of Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It is beautiful village near “Japanese Northern Alps“. It takes 40-50 min. by foot from Minami-Otari, the nearest train station. Other activities - Exchange program, Excursion on a free day (possibly to Hakuba, a famous tourism spot), etc.

⚠️ Requirements

Motivation letter is needed. Volunteers need to have good level of speaking for the daily conversations of English or Japanese and high motivation and patience to keep the hard, long and important work in the natural place, to respect the way of the local host and to learn and speak Japanese language is needed. No special skills nor experiences are needed.

ℹ️ Additional information

Study theme - Similar type of communities in each country and their networking Participation fee - 36,000 JPY (200 EUR by the rate on 2025 Nov. 3rd) for MTV (30-182 days participation) and 72,000 JPY (400 EUR by the rate on 2025 Nov. 3rd) for LTV (over 182 days participation) of NICE Volunteers fee need to be paid in advance either by Card or PayPal. This is used for the project preparation and coordination such as the transportation of the staff/ camp leaders, visa invitation cost, publications, etc. while the meals and the accommodation are provided by the local host by free. Other - The first and last 2 days are On Arrival and Evaluation Seminars in Yokohama or Osaka.

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