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LONDON: Seniors are building mudbrick houses with the help of their communities and with the knowledge imparted from off-grid participants.

In the heart of the Bega Valley is Averil Fink’s slice of paradise.

Her beautiful mudbrick home was sourced from local earth 30 years ago when she separated from her partner and needed a new place to live.

At the time there was a big owner-builder movement on the Far South Coast of New South Wales and many landholders opted for the mudbrick method.

“It didn’t feel like unknown territory,” Ms Fink said.

“It felt like something that lots of people had experience with.”

In just three months, 30-odd members of the community helped build the house and Ms Fink paid for their labour with sapphires.

Sapphires – or “sapphs” – are the official currency of Bega’s Local Economic Trading Scheme (LETS).

LETS is an off-grid market in which goods and services are traded using a virtual currency.

To pay down her debt of nearly 30,000 sapphs, Ms Fink gave back to the community over several years by gardening, teaching, and wedding planning.

“It is really covering that ground between doing things for money and doing things for favours,” she said.

“That’s why we say it’s in between love and money — it’s the perfect middle ground.”

Ms Fink’s home is billed as the house that LETS built.

Its two storeys hold many happy memories — Ms Fink raised three teenagers in the home, as well as the occasional rescue wombat.

When the LETS scheme was popular in the 1990s people kept track of the sapphire trade via ledgers, chequebooks, and a central postbox.

Those documents are now gathering a bit of dust, but the sapphire economy is being revitalised for the next generation.

Bega Valley LETS president Sue Andrew has been a member of the group for about two decades.

“I think this is prime time — I think this is a really good time,” she said.

“In terms of social weaving, too, I think it’s a really beautiful time.”

Ms Andrew moved to the countryside in the early 2000s and bought a house in the town of Wolumla, which she restumped sapphire economy.

It quite literally gave her a foundation in the community.

“We’d moved here from Sydney and didn’t know many people,” Ms Andrew said.

“Through the LETS system we got to know heaps of like-minded people.

“I think for me the biggest thing was the friendships.”

Ms Andrew is one of many rallying the new cohort of LETS members by setting up at markets and making calls to action online.

There are nearly 30 such schemes across Australia and the newest ones emerged after the Black Summer bushfires and during the pandemic.

“I think we all know that we have to be community sustaining,” Ms Andrew said.

“We really need to be working together and I feel like the LETS system is a great opportunity for that.”

Across the country, less formal economies such as the Buy Nothing Project have exploded in popularity in recent years.

There are nearly 600 groups across Australia that involve people giving away free goods to their neighbours.

Madeline Taylor from the Queensland University of Technology has spent two years researching these groups.

She estimates 1 million households in Australia take part in these free exchanges, including her own young family.

“I’m looking for ways to see hope for our future, in terms of sustainability, in terms of climate change, in terms of feeling that we are less atomised as a community,” Dr Taylor said.

“The overriding thing is wanting to help people or feel part of something bigger than ourselves.”

During her research she observed that 80 per cent of the time people were trying to give something away in the group.

Only 20 per cent of posts were made by people requesting help and Dr Taylor would like to see that ratio shift.

“This is a kind of product of current society with people feeling uncomfortable asking for help,” she said.

“The circle doesn’t work unless people are asking just as much as they are giving.”

She is encouraging others to get their hands dirty, just as she did.

“We’ve had a big [influx] of young people moving to rural areas, not just here,” Ms Fink said.

“But I think that once people start moving around, they start looking for new communities and activities.”

What better way to put down roots than to build a house from the dirt up?

“I’m really glad we built the house this way,” Ms Fink said.

“It’s here as an example that you can do stuff — you just sometimes have to jump in and do it.

“That’s why, I suppose, I appreciate it more every year.”