Dayra

Dayra: A supplementary economy that generates value through circulating existing resources and maintaining wealth within the community.

https://youtu.be/hdzcHyjB61I

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.

#local#Community#Resources#

dayra.net (please note that it is still under construction)

In Palestine there is a growing trend of economic fragmentation. In order to keep our resilient economy intact we need initiatives that capture the full potential of communal/local resources. A resilient economy is made when local production units of daily and existential essentials are catalyzed. It is made stronger when communities are engaged and connected with each other. Facilitating trade between local producers and encouraging consumption of local production fortifies the economy from shocks and reduces the reliance on exploitative markets.

Through creating economic circles: a system that encourages local production, and allows local producers and consumers to exchange and share goods with each other, aiming to encourage spending within a local community, especially with locally owned businesses. The community will have more resources to sustain it and the power to control its development. A system of governance better enables the community to decide on the best allocation of its resources and the development of its economy.

By showcasing local resources on this Dayra platform, its users can exchange with each other, resources are not limited to local fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, and honey but services like haircuts, language courses, space for events, volunteer power, and others. Exchanging the resources through this medium will also generate growth with every exchange and that growth will go towards a community pot that will fund projects that benefit the whole community, this will be achieved through a governance system of voting. Utilizing local economic resources directly triggers a local multiplier effect, Seigniorage transfer, trade efficiency, stronger social capital, and most importantly added resilience infrastructure.

Dayra started through discussions held within the community on how to find ways to diversify communal funding beyond financial and monetary aspects. There were monthly meetings with community members who worked in different economical fields in an attempt to think and work together.

Until today Dayra is mainly volunteer-run and based on members inputs, some budgets were used to cover costs associated with programming and setup of activities, these budgets were secured from presenting Dayra as an artwork at Documenta 15, which helped us build the basic structures of the project. However, going forward there will be a continuous need for the development, building, and promotion of the platform.

We want this platform to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, time, organic vegetables, organic and solid waste, as well as knowledge, experience, and others. The Mobile application is simply a token exchange system. We are looking to build a “real economy” through the exchange. Dayra value and minting will depend on the circulation of resources from the local community, without this circulation Dayra has no value and with that Dayra can generate sufficient resources to fund its development. Programmers can be paid through community pots to enhance the system or offer their services in exchange for Dayra units that they can then spend in the local economy. Dayra as a system is on the blockchain to facilitate transactions and improve security, but we also aim to engulf the technological aspect with a social and governance structure that creates a real community around it. In other words, covering trustless-based technologies with trust-based ecosystems, and allowing them to support each other.

Dayra is based on the idea of debt, a collective debt, every member of the society is indebted to the community, and through sharing the resources, the community circulates the debt, paying it and being indebted again. This debt is not credit, but rather an acknowledgment of the interdependency on each other, there is no derivative or speculation that can be made on it.

One of the main ways we are planning to kick start Dayra and the economic circle is to start with the agricultural sector in Palestine as it is one of the main ways people can participate in the productive sector and protect their lands from colonial theft. The circle needs to start somewhere, and we chose to start it with compost, we have an initial understanding with the municipality of Ramallah to send the trimmings from the trees and city public vegetation (120 tonnes a year) to a compost center instead of the local dump and even credit Dayra for the proper disposal. The compost center will then give credit to the farmers (on behalf of Dayra) as a reward for these trimmings. The trading circle can then start with the farmer buying fertiliser and selling produce to markets.