You may be wondering: what does mutual aid even mean? It might help to contrast charity vs. justice approaches to social problems. A charitable approach to poverty, for instance, might be volunteering in a soup kitchen. A justice approach would be working to end the inequalities that make soup kitchens necessary. Justice approaches to social and environmental problems ask us to think about the root causes of the problems vs. focusing on the symptoms.
As you will see by browsing through our website, all our events and resources have that aim in mind—to better understand the root causes of our social and environmental ailments and to find solutions together.
We hope you will join us!
Mutual Aid in Practice
- Mutual Aid 101 is a toolkit created by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Miriam Kaba that provides some basic principles of mutual aid, as well as some guidance on how to get your own local projects started! (it also has its own list of resources to keep you learning)
- More of a visual person? Learn about the history of mutual aid as a Black liberation practice through graphics in this great article!
- The Bog Door Project has compiled a toolkit for starting a mutual aid projects on issues ranging from child care to prisoner support to food distribution!
- The One Million Experiments project is here to inspire you with ways we keep each other safe without police. Their website offers examples of projects that focus on transformative justice, gender justice, and resources for families.