Future Society Design Prize
Dayra
: A supplementary economy that generates value through circulating existing resources and maintaining wealth within the community.
dayra collective project
Description
A medium for circulating communal economic value
Detailed explanation of the submitted project or idea.
Palestinian economy is highly dependent on the donor’s economy and international funding, which has led to structural changes within the community, focusing mainly on building institutions and expertise that can fulfill the donors’ requirements for applying and receiving financial support, that put aside there are great potentials that exist within the community as possible ways of funding and providing economical resources and strength.
Dayra aims to rethink the economy in a wider aspect than just financial resources and liberate society from being solely dependent on international funding, by creating a structure of interdependency between different small economies that co-exist within the community. Dayra, which is Arabic for “circle” and “circling”, materializes existing trust circles within specific communities. The model starts with the premise that in times of crisis, individuals, local organisations, cooperatives, and associations have no funds to sustain their operations but they have an abundance of resources and knowledge of varying types, whether they are material, physical, and intellectual. The medium thus aims to generate and store value through the act of exchanging, sharing, and putting existing resources to use for the common good.
It is a funding system that inverts the existing funding processes, it flips the system, it begins from zero budget, and builds up community capital through the circulation of resources, this capital becomes a local asset that stores value within the community.
This model expands on a community-governed economic system that will facilitate and connect the local economy; small cultural institutions, small businesses and creative industries, household economy, and freelancers to foster social development and unity. This model not only aims to bypass the traditional and restrictive funding models – we call it “liberating money” – aiming to enlarge the interdependency circles to ensure a resilient and supplementary economy through which different communities in crisis are able to nurture on their own terms.
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Comments from Judges
Atsuko Ogawa
Loftwork KyotoArt Director
Future Society Design Prize
I felt a great deal of empathy for this project which, although difficult to fully understand from the description alone, seems based on the premise of a future symbiotic society as an alternative to a capitalist system that has resulted in disparity and division. It’s a fresh perspective that connects the local economy and society by binding together communities, companies and other local interests with a system design-led approach. I’d like to hear more detail about the concept behind this.
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