Design Reparations | Design meets Indigenous

Our circles

Cultural Knowledge Revival Program

Join the team documenting Samia Indigenous knowledge and how it can guide sustainable practices against climate change.

Regeneration Festival

A festival in Busia county to center traditional knowledge on climate indicators, sustainable farming, and cultural history.

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Bring Gaza Home / Gaza Travel Agency

Bring Gaza Home advocates for the right of Palestinians to return to their homes.

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Nairobi Design Week

Design Reparations is participating in Nairobi Design Week with a workshop in Busia, an exhibition and a discussion panel.

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Showcase the artistic and design culture of the Bafut community

Working with the Bafut community to give visibility and space for the local creative talent and how it is connected to the ancestral wisdom of the Bafut people.

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How can design heal, repair and restore rather than extract and exploit?
Design Reparations is nurturing relationships of understanding, care and reciprocity between designers, innovators, social entrepreneurs and the traditional, indigenous communities around the world, for ecological and just outcomes.

Join our crowdfunding and get invited to one Design Reparations session!

Donate now!

Design Reparations is participating in Dutch Design Week, 22 and 25 October, Eindhoven.

Learn more

News, reflections and invitations

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Over the past year and a half, Design Reparations has connected designers, innovators, and Indigenous communities.

We now invite organisations into this conversation, to explore how their culture, operations, and governance can move beyond extraction and build reciprocal relationships with people and planet.

In dialogue and collaboration with Indigenous leaders, whose communities have long lived in reciprocal relationships with ecosystems, we co-design models rooted in your organisation and people.

Our three services:
🌱 Rooting Culture — workshops, reflections, learning journeys
🧵 Weaving Operations — process redesign, transformation programs
🌍 Stewarding Governance — advisory boards or supervisory bodies with Indigenous leaders

Take a look at the slides to learn more. If you are part of an organisation, or know one, that is open to this collaboration, we’d love to hear from you.

#indigenousknowledge #designreparations #services

Greetings to the Rivers: Tietê in São Paulo, Rio Santo Anastácio in Presidente Prudente

Our Journey Post Nairobi Design Week.

"In March, during Nairobi Design Week 2025, we set up our stand, hoping to share what we’ve been doing with the Samia community around Lake Victoria. To our surprise, people didn’t just pass by, they stopped, listened, asked thoughtful questions, and shared their own stories about their experiences.
Many were especially curious about how traditional knowledge could play a role in addressing today’s climate challenges...

... the true paths to sustainability are not found in foreign ideas alone, but in returning to the wisdom of our ancestors—reviving the ways of our people and renewing our sacred relationship with the land and with one another."

Written by Ian Francis Onyango,
Co-Founder, Kenge Content Hive

Read the full article on the bio.

"Feminism is for everybody," as bell hooks reminded us. It’s not just about women’s rights (which it's enough to join forces)—it’s about challenging all systems of domination, specially sexism.

This past weeks, I’ve been reflecting while reading Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design (edited by Alison Place).

The book has bring new eyes to how design often reinforces oppressive structures (specially sexism in this case) without me even realizing it.

"Design is often touted as an intervention for improving or optimizing our lives, which obscures its role in reinforcing deeply embedded power structures that oppress people, exploit labor, and extract resources." — Alison Place

As a black, cisgender and heterosexual designer, I’ve been examining my own blind spots. This book is making me realize how much more we all could be doing to challenge systemic inequities in our field.

Here a few examples:
• Challenge hetero-patriarchal norms in the typography industry
• Stand in allyship with female and non-binary colleagues advocating for equal pay
• Learn about and celebrate the achievements of non-binary designers

"To live a feminist life is to make everything into something questionable." — Sara Ahmed

I’d love to hear from you:
• How do you bring feminist principles into your design practice?
• What inequities have you become more aware of in our field?
• Can you name a few female and non-binary designers that we should know more about their work and life?

Written by @tiago.paes.vilasboas co-founder of Design Reparations

#FeministDesign #inclusivedesign

ANCESTRAL WISDOM
FROM KENYA

"I remember a time when the land was lush with trees and wildlife. Winds once guided their lives: Agundu, the wind from the north, and Asego, from the south, both brought rain and were welcomed by the farmers. Ekhoma, the wind from the east, was a warning of drought, while Vuyanja, from the west, would spark Agundu, signalling the start of the rainy season.
These winds were as much a part of daily life as the rising and setting of the sun, and they guided the community through the seasons with an understanding that has been all but lost today."

Mzee Obwogo

#designreparations #responsibledesign #indigenousknowledge #ancestralwisdom #rainmakers

For registration see the link in our bio.
Save the date 5th of June.

“Join Mulika Afrika’s founder Paul Ole Leitura (Maasai community leader), and the Design Reparations for:

🔸The colonial and exploitative traps in creating movements —and how to dismantle them in practice
🔸 Maasai design legacies as living systems of sustainability, artistry & Community
🔸 What reparations look like when Indigenous knowledge leads the process.”

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@designreparations

Pictures of recent projects from our partners

COMMITTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND JUST FUTURES

Thank you!

Special thanks to the contributors of our crowdfunding campaign. Special shout out to Enrico and Maria, Micha Commeren with Create New, Amber Stieber and Geraldine Moodley and Het Cultuurfonds.

Projects

Dutch Design Week

Our circles

Cultural Knowledge Revival Program

Regeneration Festival

Bring Gaza Home / Gaza Travel Agency

Nairobi Design Week

Showcase the artistic and design culture of the Bafut community

Join our crowdfunding and get invited to one Design Reparations session!

Design Reparations is participating in Dutch Design Week, 22 and 25 October, Eindhoven.

News, reflections and invitations

Our Journey Post Nairobi Design Week

The Art of Traditional Craft: How Mzee Edward’s Skills Can Inspire Modern Designers.

The power of intergenerational conversations

Design as living dialogue

Follow us on Instagram

Pictures of recent projects from our partners

COMMITTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND JUST FUTURES

Thank you!

Projects

Our circles

Cultural Knowledge Revival Program

Regeneration Festival

Bring Gaza Home / Gaza Travel Agency

Nairobi Design Week

Showcase the artistic and design culture of the Bafut community

Join our crowdfunding and get invited to one Design Reparations session!

Design Reparations is participating in Dutch Design Week, 22 and 25 October, Eindhoven.

News, reflections and invitations

Our Journey Post Nairobi Design Week

The Art of Traditional Craft: How Mzee Edward’s Skills Can Inspire Modern Designers.

The power of intergenerational conversations

Design as living dialogue

​

Follow us on Instagram

Pictures of recent projects from our partners

COMMITTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND JUST FUTURES

Thank you!

Projects