Om Sunisa Jamwiset Deiters

Om Sunisa Jamwiset Deiters is the co-founder and program director of Gaia Ashram, the ecovillage and learning center she established in Udon Thani in 2012 with her partner, Tom Deiters. A Thai facilitator with deep roots in the region and in engaged Buddhism, she has spent more than two decades helping people reconnect with nature and with one another.

Before Gaia Ashram, Om worked for around nine years as a facilitator at Wongsanit Ashram, a socially engaged Buddhist community near Bangkok, and later at the Panya Project, a permaculture learning center in northern Thailand. Those years shaped a teaching style that is participatory and experiential rather than lecture-based, drawing on deep ecology, nature connection, and ecovillage design.

At Gaia Ashram she leads the education program, guiding Permaculture Design Courses, Ecovillage Design Education, and deep-ecology retreats for a steady stream of Thai and international students. She has facilitated courses in several countries for NGO workers, young Buddhist activists, university students and children, always returning to the same core: that caring for the land and caring for people are one practice.

Om is also a long-standing builder of networks. A member of the Global Ecovillage Network since 2007, she helped establish NextGENOA, the network's next-generation arm for Oceania and Asia, and initiated NextGEN Asia in 2014, mentoring young leaders across the region. Between teaching and running the ashram, she and Tom are raising their children on the land they regenerate.