The story of the fables

A Father’s Promise

I started writing fables for my children when I promised them I would tell them a story every day. Through these fables, I wanted to give them many surprises and also inspire them to become entrepreneurs of the common good.

The First Fables, from Medellín to Curitiba

The first three fables were tested in 1991 in Medellín, Colombia, and also in Mexico. They quickly received the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Thanks to this, the mayor of Curitiba in Brazil, the most ecological city in the world, decided that all children and teachers should have access to the fables. It was at this point that the pedagogy was structured around five intelligences. With 12 fables completed, 150 teachers were trained in the pedagogy. In turn, they trained 6,000 teachers to present the fables to 120,000 children. The work carried out with children from the slums allowed them to discover how to produce electricity from waste on site!

From China to Estonia

This is how officials from the Education Centre of the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment discovered my work. I was then asked to run a trial in schools with the translation of 36 fables and the training of 2,000 teachers. After very positive results, the Academy of Sciences decided to expand the experiment to 5,000 schools across the country. Estonia then became the first country in Europe to train hundreds of teachers in the pedagogy and adopt the fables in schools.

33 Years to Write 365 Fables

It took me 33 years to finish writing the 365 fables! In 2023, the entire collection became available in 795,000 Chinese green schools, and the fables are in the hands of thousands of children around the world.

Children, a Powerful Force for Change

Children are a powerful force for change in our society. If there is anyone who can change parents’ behaviour, it is children!

When children are excited about a topic, parents must not only listen to them, but follow them too! It is up to us to help them discover the grandeur of nature, the creative spirit within them, their intelligence, their emotions, and their ability to dream and act.

The fables offer many concrete solutions to change the world right now. This is why inspiring children by working with the fables means changing the world with an immediate impact!

Reading the fables has changed the lives and destiny of thousands of children who have become eco-entrepreneurs…

And this is only the beginning!

And this is only the beginning!
Gunter Pauli

Katherina Bach

Katherina Bach, born in Colombia in 1974, is a mother of three. Although she trained as a lawyer specialising in climate change issues, she has been an artist all her life.

Every evening, Katherina tells her children Gunter’s Fables. She begins putting them into pictures, and goes on to contribute to the illustration of hundreds of fables.

Over the past decade, she has met inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs who have inspired the fables. She has also visited numerous projects around the world that served as the basis for these stories. This experience has given her a deep understanding of the context of each fable.

Katherina’s work combines the passion and expression of Latin America (where everyone has a heart) with European precision and style (where every species is meticulously documented on a scientific level). Having also lived in Asia and Africa, she aspires to create a universal style for children, while taking into account the specific local context of each fable.

Her dearest wish is that all children have the opportunity to travel the world and learn from others, just as she was fortunate enough to do.