Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid Networks Are Mobilizing Amid Los Angeles Fires

January 18, 2025 Schuyler Mitchell, Truthout. Organize! Extreme weather, Housing Crisis, Los Angeles, Mutual Aid, Wildfires

I’ve always said that Los Angeles is a mirror: Whatever you’re seeking, you’ll find it reflected back to you. Sure, the city has its ugly parts — celebrity worship and diet fads and smog that blots out the sky — but Los Angeles’ true core is multitudinous. Home to about 13 million people, the sprawling metropolis brims with countless communities and enclaves, neighborhoods and histories. If the ugly is all you see, then you’re not looking hard enough. Since the Palisades and Eaton fires roared to life last week, Los Angeles residents have shown how much strength and solidarity lies in their communities.

Grassroots Disaster Relief In Asheville

January 3, 2025 Megan McGee, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! Asheville, climate crisis, Grassroots, Hurricane Helene, Mutual Aid, North Carolina

“We were pretty aware that the storm was going to be significant, but we had no idea it would be as significant as it was,” says Libertie Valance, a co-owner of Firestorm Books, the worker-owned bookstore in Asheville, NC that transformed overnight into a mutual aid hub following Hurricane Helene. After causing fatalities and catastrophic damage across the Southeast, Helene reached the Western North Carolina mountain city of Asheville in the early hours of Friday Sept. 27. Floodwaters cut off access to the city via Interstate 26, severely damaged the local water system, and left residents isolated without power or cell service.

In Hurricane Ruins, North Carolina Food Workers Organize And Fight

December 6, 2024 Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. Organize! Hurricanes, Mutual Aid, North Carolina, Worker Rights and Jobs

Twenty-one days without running water. A week before any cell service or internet. Hospitals closed, and thousands of houses swept away. Not long after developers started trumpeting the city of Asheville, North Carolina, as a “climate haven” from coastal storms, the area experienced catastrophic flooding. Upland Tennessee and North Carolina were the hardest hit by Hurricane Helene on September 27. For restaurant workers, the crisis is still getting worse, says Miranda Escalante, a hotel bartender and co-chair of Asheville Food & Beverage United, an organization of restaurant workers. At least three-quarters have been laid off since the storm, she said, in what would have been peak season.

What Mutual Aid Groups Are Doing To Help Hurricane Survivors

November 19, 2024 Damon Orion, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Hurricane Helene, Hurricanes, Mutual Aid, North Carolina

Hurricane Helene, which was a Category 4 hurricane, hit on September 26 and claimed around 227 lives as of October 5, 2024. The hurricane is now considered one of the deadliest “of the modern era.” Besides destroying homes, businesses, roads, and bridges, it caused power outages for millions and left countless survivors without food and water. The hurricane has become a source of conflict and division, particularly concerning the federal government’s response to the catastrophe. Media outlets like PBS, U.S. News & World Report, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Hurricane Rumor Response page have addressed what National Public Radio (NPR) called, “[r]umors, misinformation and lies” about this issue on October 7.

Mutual Aid And Mosh Pits

October 18, 2024 Briana L. Urena-Ravelo, In These Times. Organize! Chicago, Illinois, Immigrant Rights, Music, Mutual Aid

Chicago — On the Fourth of July, a group of punks and appreciators gather around the canal on the South Side for a mutual aid benefit show. They’re raising funds for Comedor Comunitario (“Community Dining Room”), a weekly Tuesday dinner run by Venezuelan migrants at a community church. With keffiyehs and Palestinian flags throughout the space, curious holiday revelers watched from their passing boats as folks slammed to the bands Hide and Stress Positions, their lyrics decrying American settler-colonialism and nationalism in a defiant take on the holiday. All told, we raised over $3,000to support the comedor.

Mutual Aid Groups Mobilize In Wake Of Hurricane Helene

October 4, 2024 It's Going Down, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! climate crisis, disaster relief, Florida, Food Not Bombs, Hurricane Helene, Kentucky, Mutual Aid, Natural Disasters, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

A Category 4 storm, Hurricane Helene, one of the largest storms to hit the Gulf Coast in a century, collided into the Big Bend area of Northern Florida on Thursday, before moving into neighboring states of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas. According to media reports, upwards of 60 people have already been confirmed dead, although the death toll is expected to rise as many municipalities have yet to release official numbers as cell phone service and internet remains down and millions are currently without power. Extreme flooding has been reported in Atlanta, GA and Asheville, NC, as whole communities are left stranded and lacking proper shelter and access to clean drinking water.

The Private Pilots Flying Abortion Seekers Across The Midwest

September 9, 2024 Lucas Frisancho, Next City. Create! abortion access, Abortion Bans, Abortions, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Mutual Aid, Reproductive Rights, Transportation

In the fall of 2022, Mike climbed into the pilot’s seat with an idea. For the past few months, the private pilot had been volunteering with the Illinois-based Midwest Access Coalition, an abortion support fund that he’d come across in his post-George Floyd anti-racism journey. “I thought, there’s gotta be people out there helping people travel for abortions, because it’s not like every medical facility you go to provide abortion care,” says Mike. Next City has agreed to use Mike’s first name only to protect his safety and privacy as he engages in this sensitive work. “So I reached out to say, hey, I want to volunteer for anything you might need – driving, hosting, whatever.”

WhatsApp Mutual Aid

July 30, 2024 Malikia Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! India, Motherhood, Mutual Aid, Technology, WhatsApp

Motherhood has quite the build up. A combination of intense care and doting during the pregnancy, leading to a baby and a wealth of responsibilities tangled with body dysmorphia and relationship issues all culminating to the realization that “the village” does not exist. You know “the village” we all hear so much about, the one that's supposed to help raise the child. In my experience there was an odd voyeuristic effect where I felt the eyes of people watching my struggle to raise my child but unwilling or unable to actually lend a hand. It’s understandable with inflation on the rise, housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, and groceries even more so - we are all doing our best to keep our heads above water.

The Principle Of Landless Solidarity And The Recent Rains In Brazil

May 15, 2024 Brasil De Fato, People's Dispatch. Organize! Brazil, climate crisis, Cuba, Extreme weather, Landless Workers, Mutual Aid, Solidarity

The Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) this past week launched the Landless Solidarity Campaign in Rio Grande do Sul to help the more than 1.3 million people affected by the heavy rains and floods in the state. More than 90,000 Brazilian reais have already been raised for the campaign. In addition to cash donations, the Movement has also converted the Galpão Elza Soares and the Casa dos Movimentos Carlito Maia, both in São Paulo’s Campos Elíseos neighborhood, into collection points for clothes, hygiene products, medicines, and non-perishable food. “Our beloved people of Rio Grande suffered from the heavy rain that occurred last weekend, which destroyed our settlement areas, our cooperatives, our crops and, above all, the people’s dream of producing healthy food, which we were just making a reality.

How To Start A Mutual Aid Network

March 14, 2024 Aaron Fernando, Resilience. Organize! Community activism, Essential services, Mutual Aid, Solidarity

Until February 2024, Canada did not have a pharmacare program. Even then, proposals for a universal pharmacare program were remarkably vague in political parties, media reports, and campaigning groups. Earlier federal interest in a universal drug program seemed to be fading, ostensibly on cost grounds. Just in time, the Trudeau government announced a rather weak and diluted pharmacare proposal a few days before the March 1, 2024 deadline to save the supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and New Democrats, averting a possible election neither party wanted.

Guerilla Bus Benches Are Spurring Berkeley To Step Up For Bus Riders

February 4, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Buses, California, Infrastructure, Mutual Aid, Transportation

By day, Mingwei Samuel works as a software developer. Also by day — together with urbanist and writer Darrell Owens — he builds and installs benches at bus stops around Berkeley and Oakland that have no seating. It’s a tale as old as social media: In November, Owens tweeted a photo of his 64-year-old neighbor sitting on the curb at a bus stop to draw attention to the lack of seating for bus riders. “Which stop?” replied Samuel. “I can put a bench there.” A month later, he had placed a wooden bench, built based on a template from the Public Bench Project, at the bus stop in downtown Berkeley.

How ‘Chamas’ And Mutual Credit Are Changing Africa

January 27, 2024 Shaila Agha, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Africa, Local Economy, Mutual Aid, Nonmarket Economy, Unbanked

If I say that the Sarafu Network is a mutual credit network that allows trading without conventional money, that includes 50,000 households across Kenya and did $3 million worth of trade last year – how’s that for a brief description? Yeah, actually we’re up to 52,000, and last month we had 4200 new users registered. What kind of traders are they? Mostly food / agricultural produce. Food sellers and farmers. And what’s your role there? I’m the incoming director, dealing with business development and funding.

In The World’s Wealthiest Country, Housing Should Be A Human Right

January 2, 2024 Kazmyn Ramos, Scheer Post. Organize! Housing, Human Rights, Mutual Aid, Wealth

Too many of us have to depend on sheer good luck to make it — especially when it comes to putting a roof over our heads. We grow up hearing that hard work alone will lift us above the hardships we’re born into. But many of us also watched as our parents worked two and three jobs, relied on extended family to watch us, and still struggled to afford stable housing. Far too many of us are living that same struggle ourselves. It’s not that we aren’t resourceful. My grandmother, who barely scraped by with factory work and countless odd jobs, pulled together with neighbors who supported each other through a mutual aid network.

Mutual Aid Groups, Asylum-Seekers Support Families Facing Eviction

December 30, 2023 Claudia Villalona, The Indypendent. Organize! Asylum, Eviction, Housing, Migrants, Mutual Aid, New York City (NYC), Shelters

On Saturday, Dec. 16, hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers gathered at the Fourth Universalist Society on the Upper West Side for the “Posada de Comadres.” Coordinated by a coalition of mutual-aid and immigrant-rights groups, the event featured a housing workshop, a resource fair, the distribution of winter clothing and a mobile health clinic that offered basic health services. Valentina (a pseudonym) and her family, asylum-seekers who fled Colombia, were one of the families present at the event. They are also among the 3,500 families that received an eviction notice from the city earlier in the month. Valentina is over eight months pregnant; her baby is due in the first week of January.

In Occupation, They Cared For The Vulnerable

October 6, 2023 Oleksiy Arunyan, Scheer Post. Educate! Legal System, Mutual Aid, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

When the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman was occupied for five months last year, Valentyna Tkach and Tetiana Potapenko stayed behind. They volunteered to help their vulnerable neighbours. They cared for elderly residents, contacted the Russian occupation administration to ask for food and coal for them, and even buried dead bodies. Now, both women are in detention, having been accused by Ukraine’s Secret Service of collaboration with Russia – a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Tkach and Potapenko were volunteers long before the occupation. Since Soviet times, Lyman’s population has self-organised to better coordinate with local authorities.

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