Culture, Land and Livelihoods
Culture, Land and Livelihoods

Bebali Foundation’s unique expertise is at the intersection of indigenous culture, ecology and livelihoods, recognizing that the sustainability of each depends on the integrity of the other two

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Revitalizing Indigenous Culture
Revitalizing Indigenous Culture

Culture-positive support helps communities regenerate endangered traditions and strengthen indigenous identity

Facilitating Land Stewardship

Participatory research and educational outreach enable community management of culturally significant plant populations

Facilitating Land Stewardship
Incubating Rural Businesses
Incubating Rural Livelihoods

Built upon the integrity of material culture and plant resources, training and support for high-quality art and craft production raises incomes and empowers women

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Mission

Revitalizing Indigenous Cultures

Revitalizing Indigenous Culture

  • Preserving local knowledge through workshops, research, training, and documentation.
  • Empowering women weavers as custodians of culture.
  • Building a nationwide network of weavers to share experiences in dye-making, conservation, business, and more.
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Facilitating Land Stewardship

  • Developing sustainable dye and fiber plant resources.
  • Using natural dyes for health, cultural integrity, and higher incomes.
  • Participatory research for efficiency and conservation.
  • Protecting endangered plants with community planning.
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Incubating Rural Livelihoods

  • Addressing needs in the poorest regions of Indonesia.
  • Teaching a community-based business model.
  • Proven incentives to encourage investment in new skills and restoration of natural resources.
  • Cultural integrity as value adding for quality arts and crafts.

Where We Work

7. Prembon cloth wraps the banana flower

Working for Indigenous Culture Survival

Bebali Foundation works with over 1000 women weavers in more than 35 communities on 12 islands across central and eastern Indonesia. Since conventional commercialization erodes traditional material culture, Bebali Foundation works most effectively in remote areas with limited market access and higher levels of poverty.

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Peer-to-Peer Methodology

Bebali Foundation’s staff are indigenous people from Bali, Timor, and Kalimantan who understand the struggle to maintain cultural identity and know that empowering people means treating them as experts in their own lives.

Though experts in cultural issues, natural dye work and dye plant cultivation, field staff work side-by-side with weavers, dyers and farmers to find solutions to the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

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Long-Term Community Commitments

A key to Bebali Foundation’s success in the field is its long-term relationship with communities. Beyond short-term funding cycles, Bebali Foundation is committed to partnering for real change through inter-generational knowledge transfers, dye plant cultivation, and enterprise development that can take up to a decade to show sustainable impacts.

What We Do

INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Private donations have been essential to Bebali Foundation fulfilling its mission, enabling responses to needs arising outside funded grant cycles.

Since Covid and the refocusing of many institutional donors working in Indonesia away from cultural and livelihoods issues, the support of individual donors and private foundations has been critical to the continuation of Bebali Foundation’s work.

INSTITUTIONAL FUNDERS

Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation was the Bebali Foundation’s main funder between 2005 and 2020, supporting botanical research and livelihoods work.

Australian Volunteers for International Development (AVID)
The Australian government’s AVID program has supported the development of CELLS since 2009

AusAID
AusAID funded the Saving and Credit Associations program between 2008 and 2010.

USAID
Bebali Foundation’s first grant in 2002 was from USAID to apply methods developed in eastern Indonesia to support for weavers in Bali.

Toyota Foundation
Toyota Foundation has provided important supplementary support for Bebali Foundation’s botanical and livelihoods work.

World Bank
In 2005 and 2006, the World Bank funded the two weavers’ festivals held by Bebali Foundation.