Opportunity for Mandarin speaker at Plowshare community in Greenfield NH
Good morning, NHAAC!
My name is Sam Blair and I’m writing from the Plowshare lifesharing community in Greenfield (NH) to ask your help and input about an opportunity we have for a bilingual Mandarin/English speaker to apply for a live-in coworker role in our community.
Plowshare is a lifesharing community that includes adults with developmental disabilities. Our community is part of the worldwide Camphill movement, which includes 120+ communities in 20+ countries and traces its values and impulses to the same source as Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture (the philosophical framework called anthroposophy).
Plowshare is a community centered on meaningful work for everyone, regardless of ability/disability. We are a working farm, grow much of our own food in our gardens, operate a commercial bakery, run craft studios (100% beeswax candlemaking, wood workshop, fiber arts workshop), and more. About 40-45 people live here, spread out across 5 extended family lifesharing households.
The reason I’m reaching is that one of our households includes two community members who are first-language Mandarin speakers (one of these, Lijian, is a longterm coworker who is a co-leader of the household, who had a full career in Beijing and then came here in her early 50s to join our community – she is bilingual; the other, Jiaruo, is a supported community member with special needs – he understands Mandarin, not much English). We have an opening for another coworker to join this household and it would be really great to have someone who is bilingual Mandarin/English to be able to communicate in Mandarin with Jiaruo and to work closely with Lijian in supporting the household overall.
Our lifesharing model is quite unusual in the world of support for people with developmental disabilities. Being a lifesharing coworker here is much more than a “job” – it is really a choice of a different lifestyle where work, social life, and supporting an extended family (including some folks with developmental differences) are more integrated. It can be challenging in different ways, but for the right person – someone with their feet solidly on the ground beneath them and their hands ready for the many tasks of daily life in a small sustainable community – it’s quite a unique opportunity.
With that as background, I’m wondering if you have ideas for how we might spread the word in the Chinese/English bilingual community in NH about this opportunity at Plowshare? We would really appreciate any suggestions and advice you can offer, and/or spreading the word in your network of Chinese language speakers.
CONTACT: Sam Blair sam@plowsharefarm.org