OPEN RELIEF
Humanitarian Design for Crisis Preparedness
About
At OPEN RELIEF, humanitarian design meets creativity and innovation to strengthen crisis preparedness across Europe. Our mission is to empower designers, humanitarian practitioners, and local communities in Croatia, Greece, and Ukraine to co-create open-source solutions that improve how people prepare for and respond to emergencies. By combining participatory design, digital fabrication, and lived experience, we demonstrate how the cultural and creative sectors can play a vital role in building safer, more resilient communities.
At the heart of OPEN RELIEF is a commitment to collaboration and inclusion. We work alongside refugees, displaced people, local residents, and humanitarian organisations to design preparedness tools that are practical, sustainable, and shaped by the people who use them. Together with experts in civil protection, mental health, technology, and design, we transform local knowledge into innovative solutions that strengthen resilience before, during, and after crises.
Through open-source products, community-led workshops, and a practical toolkit for replication, OPEN RELIEF reimagines humanitarian aid as a creative, participatory process. Join us in building a future where humanitarian design empowers communities, strengthens preparedness, and makes resilience accessible to everyone.
Our Objectives
EMPOWER
We empower designers, humanitarian practitioners, and local communities to lead crisis preparedness. Through training in humanitarian design, frugal innovation, and participatory co-creation, OPEN RELIEF builds the skills, partnerships, and practical solutions needed to strengthen resilience and create more prepared communities across Europe.
CREATE
We believe the best preparedness solutions are created with the people who use them. OPEN RELIEF brings together designers, humanitarian organisations, and communities to co-create practical, repairable, open-source solutions that can be adapted, produced locally, and shared freely to strengthen resilience across Europe.
SHARE
Preparedness grows stronger when knowledge is shared. OPEN RELIEF develops practical tools, learning resources, and open methodologies that help organisations, makers, and communities adopt humanitarian design through peer learning, collaboration, and a growing European network, ensuring innovative solutions continue spreading.
INSPIRE
We raise awareness of the vital role creativity plays in crisis preparedness. By showcasing community-led innovation and humanitarian design, OPEN RELIEF demonstrates how culture, collaboration, and local knowledge can strengthen resilience, inspiring citizens, organisations, and policymakers to build more inclusive and sustainable preparedness.
Our Communities
Croatia
Croatia, with its rich creative sector and strong tradition of community resilience, provides an ideal setting for rethinking crisis preparedness. OPEN RELIEF will bring together local residents, designers, humanitarian practitioners, and civil society organisations to co-create open-source preparedness solutions. By combining community knowledge with creative practice and humanitarian design, Croatia will develop practical, locally relevant innovations that strengthen resilience and inspire communities across Europe.
Greece
Greece, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, is a place where migration and humanitarian response have shaped resilient communities. OPEN RELIEF will bring together local residents, refugees, designers, humanitarian practitioners, and civil society organisations to co-create open-source preparedness solutions. By combining lived experience with humanitarian design and creative innovation, Greece will develop practical, community-driven approaches that strengthen resilience and inspire preparedness across Europe.
Ukraine
Ukraine, through the resilience and ingenuity of its communities, has become a powerful example of innovation in times of crisis. OPEN RELIEF will bring together designers, artists, humanitarian practitioners, and local communities to co-create open-source preparedness solutions. By combining frugal innovation with creative practice and humanitarian design, Ukraine will develop practical, community-driven approaches that strengthen resilience and inspire preparedness across Europe.
The OPEN RELIEF Team
The OPEN RELIEF team is a multidisciplinary partnership of designers, humanitarian innovators, creative practitioners, and community organisations from Croatia, Greece, and Ukraine. United by a shared commitment to resilience, solidarity, and open innovation, we work together to co-create practical, open-source solutions that strengthen crisis preparedness. Together, we're demonstrating how culture, humanitarian design, and community knowledge can help build a more prepared, inclusive, and resilient Europe.
Project Coordinator
IM Industries
IM INDUSTRIES is a Croatian cultural organisation coordinating OPEN RELIEF. The organisation specialises in participatory design, cultural innovation, and European cooperation, it brings together creatives, humanitarian actors, and local communities to develop open-source solutions that strengthen resilience through collaboration, inclusion, and sustainable design.
Project Partner
LATRA
LATRA is a Greek humanitarian design organisation based on Lesvos, where it pioneers community-led innovation in migration and crisis settings. Combining participatory design, digital fabrication, and social innovation, LATRA empowers refugees, local communities, and creatives to co-develop open-source solutions that strengthen preparedness, inclusion, and resilience.
Project Partner
KYIV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design (KNUTD) is a leading Ukrainian university advancing design, engineering, and humanitarian innovation. Through OPEN RELIEF, it contributes expertise in frugal innovation, digital fabrication, and participatory design, helping transform crisis experience into open-source solutions that strengthen preparedness, resilience, and cross-border collaboration.
