Founder and President of the Bali Institute, Marcia Jaffe, took a short holiday to Bali in October 2003 to recuperate from producing a 2,000-person conference in California. She was certain that there were no more conferences in her future as she was tired and ready for something new. Bali felt like a “calling”. While traveling in Ubud, she found herself in deep dialogue with numerous Balinese, and was drawn to their commitment to spirituality, balance and community life.

But it was the Balinese reaction to the terrorist attack on their beautiful island that was most astounding. The Balinese used their atrocity as an opportunity for deep inquiry into what their culture might have done to generate such bad karma, and what could they do to prevent this from happening again. Their answer has been to reclaim their culture, and to emphasize rituals and ceremonies in their community and with families and children. Bali was also in desperate need to have people come back to the island, since their economic structure had been based on tourism, and the entire island was economically suffering everywhere.

Before Marcia left Bali, she began to envision a conference that would bring people together to learn from the Balinese — their culture had much to teach the rest of the world, and people everywhere needed to support them in this time of challenge. Marcia teamed up with two other deeply committed and well-seasoned professionals, Wilford Welch and Carole Angermier, and the first Quest for Global Healing conference was held almost a year later with more than 425 people from 22 countries. The second Quest for Global Healing and the first Global Youth in Action pre-program was held in 2006 with more than 650 people from over 30 countries. Both programs focused on how people can make a difference in the world.

Global leaders attending have included three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams and Jody Williams, Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the 6th man to walk on the moon), the former president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid, Bhutan’s Minister of Culture, Afghanistan’s Red Crescent Society President, and numerous others.

This gathering will be the first program as we launch the new Bali Institute for Global Renewal . Marcia’s new dream is to build a Balinese-designed world learning center based in Ubud. The facility will bring together world leaders and engage global citizens and activists from around the world on a regular basis for shared learning and training. Organizations, universities, think-tanks, learning institutes, consultants, trainers, and global citizens can become members of the Institute and offer or attend programs.

To learn more about the Bali Institute’s schedule of upcoming workshops, go to: http://baliinstitute.org/workshops/index.html