Transcript of Expert Podcast
Three social farmers were invited to the podcasts made in Poland. Those were Elżbieta Augustyńska, Iwona Cybulska, Jadwiga Zwolińska, who lead the social farms for seniors and people with disability in the northern part of Poland.
The ladies highlighted the importance and a great need for social farming in Poland. Loneliness, lack of perspectives and monotony of everyday life is a common problem for seniors and disabled people. Joint activities on a farm give them the reason to get out of bed everyday – they are happy to spend time together, doing creative things and sharing their thoughts.
The social farmers tells the stories of their farms and describes how the ordinary day on a farm looks like. They divide the schedule between work and other activities. They prepare meals together, do gardening, walking, visiting forests, lakes. They also learn how to do preserves from the fruits, bouquets of flowers, how to dry the herbs.
Of course, the work with people takes a lot of energy but the happiness and development of the people who come to the farm is the best prize for farmers. The problem is sometimes the lack of funds – seniors and people with disabilities cannot afford paying for the activities on farm.
The ladies convince that it is not difficult to start social farming. When they were starting, they were afraid but they had the opportunity to see social farms in Europe and they got inspired. And now they eagerly share their experience and encourage everybody to consider starting a social farm, as they see a great need of such kind of social support.