Living Trails
Participatory Toolkit for Bottom-up Policy Making
Conventional policy processes often marginalize grassroots voices and rely on linear models that conflict with relational worldviews. Living Trails is a participatory framework that empowers Indigenous and marginalized communities to co-create policy with institutions. It uses a facilitation toolkit and alignment models to build trust, redistribute decision-making power, and ground policy in place-based knowledge. The goal is to meet human needs while respecting planetary boundaries and social foundations.
This concept represents a mature framework for Participatory Policy Design. By synthesizing complex administrative processes into an accessible, low-cost toolkit. It empowers marginalized indigenous groups to engage in civic discourse. This demonstrates that design can serve as a catalyst for systematic social change.
WINNER STATEMENTReceiving this recognition for Living Trails is both an honor and a reminder that in a rapidly changing world shaped by inequality and fragmentation, we must pause, reflect and move forward together; creating futures where no community, knowledge system, or voice is left behind.
UNIVERSITYSavannah College of Art and Design
Savannah, US