Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts

The Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts is a non-profit organization dedicated to Philippine cultural revitalization and environmental regeneration. Founded in 1994 by ethnomusicologist and music artist Dr. Grace Nono, Tao Foundation is co-led by an all-female Board of Trustees and a predominantly-female Council of Elders whose members are community leaders, scholars, artists, Culture Bearers, and wellness practitioners.

Tao Foundation’s mission is to help facilitate the transmission, development, and exchange of Local and Indigenous Knowledges in the arts, health, gender, environment and spirituality, to contribute to the empowerment of Culture Bearers and to help in the shared task of advancing trancultural and transreligious dialogue, wellbeing and peace on the planet.

Tao Foundation’s current programs include the Agusan del Sur–Schools of Living Traditions in collaboration with the National Commission of Culture and Arts and specific Cultural Communities in Bunawan, La Paz, and Esperanza, Agusan del Sur. These community-based schools facilitate the transmission of knowledge in language, matters of ancestral domain, customary law, governance, arts, medicine, spirituality from Indigenous Culture Bearers to Indigenous youth. A second program, Himig, Tula, Galaw ng Ninuno or Philippine Traditional Music, Poetry, and Movement Webinar Series is a venue for masters of traditional musical instruments, chant, dance and martial arts to share aspects of their knowledge to learners across ages, ethnicities, and nationalities. A third program is PAMATI, a gathering of Philippine ritual specialists and other Culture Bearers from Indigenous, folk-Islam, and folk-Christian communities so that they can exchange stories and practices and be able to share some of these to those seeking to rediscover ancestral knowledge. Finally, there is the Alima Eco, Agri, and Heritage Park, a land-based response to climate change, ecosystems degradation, and biodiversity loss, a venue for learning environmental conservation from the lens of dialogue between modernist and Indigenous sciences. Alima is a collaboration between the Tao Foundation, Dr. Nono’s family, modernist scientists involved in peatland and forest conservation, and Indigenous knowledge bearers.

The first fundraising goal for 2025 is towards supporting the School of Living Traditions’ training of Indigenous and local mothers in traditional embroidery and other traditional arts in ways that assist these women’s livelihood while keeping time-honored arts alive. The second fundraising goal is towards continuing the development of the Alima Eco, Agri, and Heritage Park by adding facilities and repairing existing ones so that the site can begin to host training programs in environmental conservation in 2025.