About
The toolkit was created by Decolonial by Design with funding from the Assets, Agency, and Trust initiative in the Philippines and Kukuza Uwezo initiative in Tanzania as a guide to decolonizing philanthropy communications.
Getting Started
If you’re new here, move through the toolkit in the order set out. And once you’re familiar with it, feel free to dip in and out as you please.
This toolkit is not designed to be exhaustive. It offers a bitesized framework to support an organisation’s ongoing efforts to decolonize their communications, that’s easy to navigate, digest and apply. We recognize the ever-evolving nature of language and that language can be subjective, so invite and encourage you to reach out for a conversation so we can continue to improve how we communicate
See the four pillars below to get a sense of the philosophy behind the toolkit.
Philosophy
01 Provocation over Policing.
As society moves towards adopting a more critical approach toward the way that we communicate, we want to support this transition in a way that leads to a truly safe society for all. This means allowing for diverse opinions, non-traditional ways of thinking and difficult conversations to co-exist. With this in mind, this toolkit is designed to invite you to broaden your thinking without restricting your freedom to ‘make mistakes’ or challenge the orthodoxy.
02 Suggestion over Censorship.
The wordbank provides suggestions for terms and words which invite both the writer and reader to view the work through a more ‘decolonial’ lens. This is not to censor but simply to provide useful suggestions, with easy-to-follow reasoning, to support your decolonial journey.
03 Honesty over Policy.
Efforts to decolonize, where possible, should be intrinsically motivated because those engaged in the work truly see the value of doing. This enables the decolonial journey to be led by honest self reflection as opposed to ‘tick-box’ exercises that people follow simply because they feel that they ‘must’. Intrinsic motivation is much more likely to lead to sustainable, long term change.
04 Evolution over ‘End Game’.
We recognise that this is a continuous learning journey requiring experimention and flexibility. This microsite is not fixed, but rather a fluid space that is open to grow and evolve. Likewise, the information and provocations included in the space should be taken and applied with a similar level of fluidity and experimentation.