Guru Gede Budha Foundation

Healing the world, together, by learning through doing sustainability

What is Guru Gede Budha Foundation?

Guru Gede Budha Foundation provides educational programs designed around protecting and promoting Bali’s intrinsically sustainable way of life. Our programs focus on Bali’s cultural heritage and philosophies of harmony with the natural environment as an example for sustainable living for the rest of the world. By teaching participants to understand their impact on their immediate environment (Bali), we teach them to think about their impact everywhere they go and to ensure that their impact is always positive. Our programs recognize that society, culture and environment are interconnected and mutually-dependent, and centered around Bali’s philosophies and culture. The foundation will pursue these aims by offering education to youth, adults, and teachers.

Industrialization, globalization and capitalism have resulted in climate change that is threatening humanity’s existence on Earth. The pursuit of economic development as a safeguard against climate change is actually having the opposite effect - countries and communities who live in and with nature are being forced to abandon activities that sustained them and their environment over millennia in order to achieve short-term financial returns. Westernization and ‘modernization’ are causing people to abandon ways of living and working that connect them to their communities and to the environment, and are requiring people to engage in activities that speed up the destruction of community and cultural systems that have historically served and protected these communities and their natural environments for many thousands of years.

Guru Gede Budha Foundation focuses all learning on the traditional cultural and religious philosophies of Bali (specifically Tri Hita Karana, a philosophy that promotes harmony between spiritual, natural and human worlds) and how these philosophies provide the foundation for the daily rituals, activities, and careers that have created the interpersonal, architectural, spiritual and agricultural resilience and balance of Bali. By focusing our education on Balinese philosophies and their associated rituals, activities and careers, we teach participants about how sustaining traditional activities and protecting the environment affects the resilience and sustainability of communities and culture. Our educational offerings involve working with provincial, regency and village leaders, providers and the community to create and support activities that ensure the welfare, culture, and sustainability of Bali’s people, Bali’s culture, Bali’s traditions and the environment for the future and as a model for the world.


Current programs

  • Professional Certificate in Applied Sustainable Development more...
  • Youth Theater for Planet in a Crisis more...
  • Ups & Downs - weekly exploration of Bali's natural beauty more...