The struggle of the non-profit as a foreigner

 I stopped publishing at this blog years back.. why? because i created a non-profit organisation. I figured that the old building might become a community project, especially as i was doing the project mostly with the help of volunteers.  I was hoping for a community voice/blog, yet it did not happen.   A foreigner starting a non-profit organisation from Australia that owns a railway station, that is something that does not make much sense to people around here, this is at least is the vibe i get. 

Since the non-profit started, I've run into brick wall after brick wall, yet the brick walls were here before that, i thought the non-profit might be a way around some of those problems and be able to integrate the local community through the project.  No such luck. Every plan/process that i have put forward to any government body has been knocked back. Every possible problem with my status as immigrant has been investigated and taken to the court, the supreme court once and municipal court twice. Every loan application knocked back. Septic tank, land tax rate, foreigner guest entry for airbnb... and the list goes on. I actually can't think of anything that can be inspected by the state and has not been. 

Anyway.. So the people that I started the non-profit with, they have kind of lost interest. So i'm now the director of the non-profit and owner of the building, sounds like a conflict of interest. Yet so be it..

 Anyway, doing my best to reboot the non-profit project in 2022 with open, democratic & inclusive ideas. During this whole time though, i've continued with volunteers through workaway and airbnb, things go well if you take the Corona virus into consideration. 

I guess its a little similar to Australia, the capital cities are good and fine, yet living in a small neglected town in regional Australia as a foreigner and starting a non-profit for culture and the environment... It could be even more painful. 

I do feel though that in all this ridiculous misery, I have somehow found myself. Those capitalistic bones, they really just don't fit me, and I guess that is why I'm here. I recall a line i once heard in a song, the only good thing about a small town is leaving it.

Blog on, and hopefully better times in 2022. Here is the link to the non-profit. The show must go on.

 http://www.kulturnistanice.eu/