Gaarawé Village is a permaculture project located in Khao Sok, south Thailand. Since 2015, Gaarawe has been growing with the help of thousands of volunteers and partners. We have survived storms and floods, broken technology and body parts, even a global pandemic. Gaarawe is still here because – like the flower that the village takes its name from – it is able to adapt to its environment.

Gaarawé as a project truly began when Lele and his partner, Touch, came to Khao Sok to realise the dream of building a community interconnected with nature. The village began as a small plot of land with a dirt track and a few trees poking out of the wilderness. Slowly, the infrastructure built up. A water tower was constructed to pump water from the river. Electricity lines connected the land to the outside world. 

Volunteers began arriving to roll up their sleeves and put their hands into the clay earth, slowly transforming it into fertile ground for a variety of plants both for feeding the village and benefitting the wider environment. See how we apply permaculture principles to our site here.