Mutual Aid

Mutual aid is an organizational model, where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This can include resources like food, clothing, to medicine and services like breakfast programmes to education. These groups are often built for the daily needs of their communities, but mutual aid groups are also found throughout relief efforts, such as in natural disasters to pandemics. (Wikipedia)

Mutual Aid groups often go beyond material or service exchange and are setup as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.

Mutual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team. With this joint decision making, all participating members are empowered to enact change and take responsibility for the group.

Where does Mutual Aid show up in history? Think The Black Panther Party leveraging mutual aid to expose racial inequities by building care and resource distribution centers through their community survival and free breakfast programs. These efforts helped shape modern-day mutual aid. The Black Panther Party’s mutual aid program also forced the government to create….WIC!

Mutual Aid helps form the Solidarity that we need right now and going forward. It encourages all community members to contribute their ideas and skills to meet their unique needs. Mutual Aid reminds us that we are all connected. 

You can click the links below to learn more about Mutual Aid and how to start Mutual Aid programs in your city