Our lifestyle change to Regenerative action.

The story

We are A Regenerar/Let´s regenerate!  We live in La Junquera, in Southeast Altiplano in Spain, a Regenerative agriculture farm in the AlVelAl region. We are colaborating with AlVelAl asociation and Restoration camp/ Camp Altiplano. We promote Regenerative agriculture concept and projects, helping Regenerative initiatives with the digitalisation and their visibility on social networks. We are working on the next part of our plan, which is related to a web platform to manage our personal reforestation campaigns in the region, reaching a direct positive impact in the landscape.

But 10 months ago our lives were totally different… We were living in the city, working jobs which didn´t give us what we wanted or expected, living in really expensive rented rooms and without real future expectations. This is the reality of thousands of young people at this moment. Young people trying to adapt to the rules and structures promised like THE NORMAL WAY TO FOLLOW, but only finding stress, frustration and not really knowing what to do in this world.

And then the covid crisis arrived. Some of us lost our jobs and the possibility to pay the rent, so we moved back to our parents homes after living several years away from our family house, a difficult situation. If we add to this the lockdown and restrictions, the life in the city was not a beautiful and relaxed one.

But in Spain we say: “No hay mal que por bien no venga”, that it means: sometimes the bad things open a good and unexpected opportunity.

In this moment, we started to talk about the situation, how our plans had been broken and our lifestyle in the city was not healthy, neither for our wallets or our mental health. So we left Madrid before the next lockdown and we went to the country house of one of our families, in a small village in Extremadura (West of Spain).

Some time ago, we had started to know about Alvelal and Commonland project in Spain thanks to Astrid Vargas, one of the founders of the project and someone who is connected to Biodiversity restoration plans around the world. We watched the documentary “Head, Heart and Hands” and it inspired us to look for something we could do to help, how we could get involved in Regeneration and the Alvelal plan.

First we started the brainstorming in the country house, at the same time that we started to learn about gardening and regenerative techniques and testing them. After 2 months living there and after one visit to La Junquera, we had an idea about what to start, how we were going to help and get involved in Alvelal’s plan and where we were going to live.

La Junquera was the perfect place for us. It is an incredible Regenerative model farm where different projects are being carried out by amazing people. The first thought that came to mind when we visited was: WE ARE NOT ALONE, WE ARE NOT CRAZY.

Now, we have been living here, and developing our own personal project for 8 months. We are happy, we are in direct contact with nature, planting trees, making our veg. garden, hiking and collaborating with other projects and meeting a lot of beautiful people. In other words – DOING SOMETHING THAT GIVES US PERSONAL SATISFACTION, CREATING SOMETHING OF OUR OWN, A WAY OF LIFE AWAY FROM “THE NORMALITY OF THE CITY”.

Our lives have change a lot in 9 months, but we can assure you that it has been THE BEST CHANGE THAT WE COULD DO. Young people have the opportunity to change and develop regenerative projects, IT IS THE MOMENT!!

LET´S REGENERATE!!