ADRIAAN VAN DUUREN

Hi, I'm Adriaan. I'm 20 years old and born and raised in the Flemish part of Belgium. I am a leader in my local “Sea Scouts” and am very engaged in creating events. I helped as a paid assistant for the first time this summer in a surf camp abroad In France that I used to go to as a child for summer camp. It took me a while to get that summer job. I was doing a woodwork apprenticeship for one year until the Belgian lockdown forced me to stop. I was driving to work every day at 7, with my lunch packet and finished every day at around 5 but didn’t learn as much as I was hoping to do. I did build a hydraulic machine starting from scratch for a company as a last year high school project and I scored a good result. I had a small vegetable garden with potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and some other vegetables in my parents greenhouse. I went for 2 months to Hossegor in France last summer, on my own, to learn French and worked in a restaurant on the beach to pay for it all. My two months in France last summer were a great reality check. Arriving in a completely foreign place, not speaking French and with no contacts, friends or family around was a tough one. I did enjoy that challenge though and the camping in my tent, living with very little and finding a place to work in that small town was an eye opener for the years to come. I always rather clean up the garden and make a fire in the garden with my younger brother, rather than playing video games inside. I was given a survival course by my granddad for my 16th birthday once, as my bible was the SAS survival guide, that I’ve read more then I can count. I just know that living in nature and learning how to live off-grid and sustainable is the way I will take!