Change is often designed from the top—by institutions far from the communities they hope to serve. But real change grows differently. It begins in the soil: in lived experience, memory, identity, and place.

Rootwards Global exists to shift how research, policy, and action are imagined.

Instead of treating communities as beneficiaries, we recognize them as origins—repositories of resilience, creativity, knowledge, and solutions. We return to the root: the histories, systems, and lived wisdom that shape people’s realities today.

Our approach is slow, deliberate, and grounded. We work bottom-up, not top-down.

With Rootwards, futures are not designed elsewhere — they grow from where life begins.

We work across three interconnected areas:

1. Research

Community-centered, mixed-method, reflexive research exploring exclusion, livelihoods, climate vulnerability, institutions, and Indigenous resilience.

2. Advisory & consulting

Evidence-based support for governments, INGOs, foundations, and social enterprises designing interventions or policy grounded in context.

3. Learning & capacity building

Workshops, training, and frameworks that build capability for grounded, ethical, culturally aligned practice.

• Our approach is grounded — We start from the lived realities of people.
  
  

• Our approach is collaborative — We co-create with communities. Communities are partners, not subjects.
  
  

• Our approach is reflexive — We acknowledge power, identity, and positionality.

• Our approach is ethical — We uphold cultural integrity and do no harm.
  
  

• Our approach is systemic — We target root causes, not downstream symptoms.