Eco-village and communities in Iceland

Hello ! I am a french-indian student now in New delhi !

I am basically in the field of textile and I am working in ecological/natural dyeing, which is a new and growing field with a great market gap in Europe as virtually every clothes are dyed with water polluting and cancerigen-for-the-worker dyes.

I know that there are some eco-villages/communities in Iceland and they might be interested by my expertise in this field (as organic clothing is pointless if the dyes aren't ecological) but as I don't have any link or relationship in Iceland I don't know much about them and where they are all !

I have to do actually a three-month internship (june to august 2011) but I don't need to be paid for this as that would be a dream for me to spend sometime and give a contribution there.

By the way as I am french and won't need a work permit.

Any information or piece of advice related to eco-village or organic textile, or just textile in Iceland would be very much appreciated !

Thank you !

Mathieu Raj

the one idea that I thought of immediately is Solheimar:

solheimar.is/template4.asp?Sid_NR=696&E_NR=668&VS=1VS1.asp&VT=696

you could also contact the handknitting association and see if they know of anyone who's doing such work. Their shop in Reykjavik sells all kinds of things and is in contact with many craftspeople all over the country.

handknit.is/en/user/home

Thank you very much :)

I've just found an internship in the field of natural dyeing of clothes with a fashion designer in Reykjavik :)

Need help with the accomodation and I still don't know anyone in the whole country !

I am leaving this week to Iceland, I am the happiest person in the world :)

Congrats MathieuRaj! :)

Accommodation is always harder to find in the summer, as lots of people switch their offers to nightly rentals for tourists instead of longer-term leases. My advice would be to ask around and see if the designer you'll be working with knows of anything available. A lot of people here do seem to find flats through personal communications.

Otherwise, if you're stuck looking on your own, there are some websites that you can use.

leiga.is/leit/default.aspx?search=1
mbl.is/leiga/
leigulistinn.is/

The first two are free; the last one costs about 3600 kr for one month of access. However, as a non-Icelandic speaker, it's also the one I found to be the easiest to navigate and use, and it's generally the one I had the most luck with.

Thank you so much ! :)