Nurturing relationships of understanding, care and reciprocity between the design community and the traditional, indigenous communities around the world,
for ecological and just outcomes in design and beyond.
ROOTED IN ANCESTRAL TRADITIONS
Pictures of ancestral traditions from our partners
ANCESTRAL KNOWLEDGE KEEPERS
The importance of ancestral worldviews and way of living
Indigenous communities constitute only 6% of the global population, steward up to 80% of the world's biodiversity.
Worldwide, there are many traditional cultures that prioritise a relationship of respect and mutualism with nature and people.
Regrettably, the lives and cultures of these communities have been pushed to the brink of extinction and are continuously endangered, due to acts of systemic racism, oppression and climate change.
Design Reparations builds a global support networks of skilled designers, ready to support indigenous communities and their causes, and open to learn their ancestral way of living.
Ancestral knowledge offers learning systems, sciences, and practices that contribute to co-creating a future that benefits all beings.
Join Us!
You are representative of a indigenous or traditional community, you can join Design Reparations to:
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Share and bring awareness about your community's invaluable knowledge
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Find support and potential alliances for community causes and projects.
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Connect with kindred spirits committed to live in peaceful co-existence.
Pictures of recent projects from our partners
COMMITTED TO ECOLOGICAL AND JUST FUTURES
DESIGNERS
Designing the future that we want
Designers that want to contribute to more ecological and just futures struggle to find the opportunities to support worthy causes. At the same time, despite having a lot of positive intentions, Design is still relying on unsustainable practices, created in the context of industrial exploitative systems.
There are still insufficient practical opportunities to question mainstream design practice, get in touch with different worldviews and support meaningful causes.
Designers that are truly committed to creating ecological futures have the opportunity to get in relationship with people from ancestral communities around the world, learn their way of living and designing, re-discover practices that may belong to their own ancestors and traditions, while working on practical causes that support the existence and thriving of these communities.
Designers want to work on meaningful futures and learn ecological design practices.
Design Reparations is a unique form of collaboration between designers, indigenous and ancestral knowledge holders, design institutions and companies.
Ancestral knowledge holders guide designers in the way of living and designing of their communities.
Designers, in the spirit of reciprocity, lend their skills to causes in support indigenous communities existence and culture.
DESIGN INSTITUTIONS
Decolonising design practices
The academic world has been recognising the importance of decolonisation and indigenisation, but what opportunities do students have to learn first-hand from ancestral knowledge holders? And what if they could use their time in school to work on causes that would support the very communities they can learn from?
Design institutions have the opportunity to host, sponsor and support Design Reparations and explore how decolonisation looks like in practice.
Join us!
If you are a design institution committed to decolonisation, you can join Design Reparations to:
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Create the opportunity for your students to learn from ancestral and indigenous people
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Put decolonisation in practice
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Explore more possibilities of research
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Meet like-minded people, working on collective ecological futures
Design Institutions have an important role in the adoption of decolonised practices.
COMPANIES
Supporting decolonisation via design
Companies committed to a just future, can join Design Reparations by supporting its efforts and inviting their designers to participate.
Design Reparations offers the opportunity to heal relationships with communities around the world, especially when these communities have been negatively impacted by the company's operations in the past.
Join us!
If you are representing a company committed to a just ecological future you can join Design Reparations to:
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Join an equity driven organisation
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Support young designers and students discovering more equal and eco-centric practices
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Engage your workforce in the program
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Meet like-minded people, working on collective ecological futures
Companies can be the catalysers of positive change
Projects
Our Partners
The Indigenous Guides and Co-facilitators
About us
The project was born in 2024 as the result of Cecilia Scolaro and Tiago Vilas Boas coming together. Their combined experience and knowledge in Responsible Design, Indigenous knowledge, Regeneration, Peacemaking and Community building, gave shape to Design Reparations.
As guides, we are responsible for setting up the conditions for the designers and the indigenous representative to establish the best relationship and collaboration possible, including creating the material conditions for Design Reparations to happen.
Cecilia Scolaro
Responsible Design strategist, coach, educator and consultant.
Specialty: Decolonization, Regenerative design, design for equity and inclusion, systems thinking, design for wellbeing and self-determination.
Tiago Vilas Boas
Facilitator, Community Weaver, Designer.
Specialty: Facilitating change, Reciprocal Relationships, Participatory Learning and Community Weaving.
Beyond Reparation, towards Relational.
Quote by Chief Ninawa Inu, of the people Huni Kui, from Acre, Amazon, Brazil, and Ambassador of the University of the Forest.
"A framework of justice is necessary in Western political contexts where we need to be intelligible and where we still need to be represented in our fight for reparations and restitution. However, this is only harm reduction work that addresses the symptoms of the diseases (colonialism and racism). The root of the fundamental existential problem is relational. The framework of justice is extremely limited because it is still based on separability and human superiority. It does not reflect the reality that everything is inseparable from each other."
We encourage you to read
Healing the degenerative disease of separation: an on-going regenerative inquiry.
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This is the space to introduce the Services section. Briefly describe the types of services offered and highlight any special benefits or features.
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This is the space to introduce the Services section. Briefly describe the types of services offered and highlight any special benefits or features.