Urban heritage conservation in India is particularly challenging: the lack of technical and financial resources, professional knowledge and application of traditional skills to restore and reuse old buildings has led to neglect, decay and dereliction in the urban environment. A two-level engagement is required, one with the policy makers,
another with the local communities.
The Restoration Toolbox creates tools and spaces to promote participatory heritage conservation in India, using open-source digital technologies to empower citizens and local communities to preserve their own heritage. The key principles of the project are people-to-people, co-creation, and community-building.
To achieve its goal, the project is sustained on three main activities: technology sharing and knowledge transfer, capacity building, and training as well as dissemination to a wider audience through hybrid models, seminars, and co-creation workshops to strengthen local knowledge and skills. The participatory processes towards heritage conservation are seen as a tool to support stakeholder involvement and policy making built on a deep understanding of the Indian context. Developed on Decidim, which offers a stable, ethical, and modular architecture to build such a platform, backed by a strong international community maintaining its code and ethical compass, facilitating the sustainability of the Restoration Toolbox platform.
The project exchanges and shares knowledge on open governance, financing models, Private-Public-People partnerships, reuse models, grassroots community development and holistic approaches to heritage and urban development. Partners will carry out training sessions and promote outreach, fomenting long-lasting and multistakeholder heritage conservation communities.
