Workaways are amazing! You can create a workaway for just about anything. I knew nothing about them until a couple of months ago. My daughter started one last week in England. I’ve been trying to sleuth all the details: how does it get funding, how do the couple who run it pay for the house for the workawayers? Do they get grants?

This Workaway is west of London toward Glastonbury and Bath, in a small traditional English town called Wincanton. It has a fully stocked workshop where kids and families learn to make things. The building the workshop is in says Bootmakers (see pics below). I assume groups pay to attend. Who comes? From how far away? How do they find out about it? It seems to be just for fun, something nice for parents to do with their kids, though some older kids get dropped off. What made the founder choose to do this? How did she get started?

The founder also has a philanthropic project collecting books and sending them to hard-to-reach places in the world, like remote villages of Pakistan where she’s from. They also make pizzas. Once a week, there’s a pizza party for the Workawayers. Do they also sell them? I don’t know.

Hard parts? Eight workawayers live in a four-bedroom house with only one bathroom. That’s got to have its challenges. Also, it can’t always be easy managing the kids, with or without their parents. Fun things: Getting to know people from all over the world: so far they’ve been from England, U.S., S. Africa, Brazil, Belgium, and Denmark. My daughter loves crafting so that aspect is a heyday for her. There are great places to visit in the vicinity, like Stonehenge.

The Workaway bosses provide the food as long as you put in at least 25 hours weekly; the Workawayers take turns shopping and preparing one dinner a week.

People have Workaways for: help renovating boats, fixing up houses, child care, learning a language, helping on an ecofarm or animal rescue …. What can you imagine having a Workaway for?