West Coast Institute of Happiness joins Ecologistics

Many in our Ecologistics/Central Coast Bioneers community attended the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Conference last May.  It was truly a memorable event.  In the ensuing months, Ecologistics negotiated a fiscal sponsorship arrangement with our keynote speaker Kinga Tshering, President of Bhutan’s Institute of Happiness (IOH), an evidence-based think and do tank that seeks to be a thought center for the Bhutanese GNH experience, and created the West Coast Institute of Happiness (WCIOH), . Bhutan replaced Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with GNH as a way to determine the country’s wellbeing.  WCIOH will sponsor conferences, trainings and produce educational material on GNH.  .

With the help of Ecologistics board member Doreen Liberto, WCIOH has applied for a grant to facilitate the formation of  templates  based on Bhutan’s GNH pillars and domains.  The templates will be formatted so they can be used by other countries based on  their government structure, cultural background, and other unique characteristics of a country.

“We are delighted to be able to serve as WCIOH’s fiscal sponsor and help them promote their philosophy of a more meaningful way of measuring a country’s overall health,” said Doreen.  WCIOH is already planning Gross National Happiness conferences in Southern California and Vancouver, Canada 2020. The East Coast GNH Conference is located at Harvard University.

The City of Santa Monica, the first city in California to implement an Office of Civil Wellbeing, using GNH principles, is holding a free Wellbeing Summit on Saturday, November 16.  Kinga Tshering will be one of the featured speakers.  More information on the Summit can be found here.