The COVID-19 pandemic is putting enormous pressure on almost everyone and causing a lot of generosity, care, and innovation to come to the surface as people try to figure out how to take care of each other. I hope that in this moment we will see an explosion of mutual aid efforts where we can all learn more about how to take matters into our own hands during disasters and build shared infrastructure that makes all the ongoing and coming disasters more survivable. Below is a list of some of the resources I have seen circulating. Please share these (and they include many lists of resources) on your social media threads and with friends and groups. There are lots of great ideas and models to replicate here.
This new map lets you find out about mutual aid projects all around the US.
This new guide from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief has great details on how to build mutual aid groups and how to share supplies safely with neighbors. Super practical info.
It’s Going Down (which is a wonderful resource for information about mutual aid efforts all the time, I recommend their podcast episodes on mutual aid during the CA wildfires and other disasters) published this very useful post with lots of links to mutual aid efforts and resources all over Canada and the US.
Here is a big resource list full of other resource lists with lots of great info on mutual aid and COVID-19.
And here is another one like that.
There is beautiful coordination happening right now with over 500 groups in the UK forming a mutual aid project network. Here is their site on how to form a group and do the work.
Here is great info on NYC COVID-19 mutual aid efforts.
Here is a guide from people in Medford-Sommerville on how to replicate what they are doing to create a neighborhood network.
Here is the COVID-19 DC Resource Toolkit.
Here is a resource on how to do door knocking to check on neighbors and form a network of care.
Here is a How to Build a Neighborhood Pod guide which I recommend reading alongside Rebel Sidney Black’s Podmapping for Mutual Aid guide.
Many people are doing fundraising and other mutual aid efforts for people who are losing work during this time. Check out these efforts to raise money for sex workers losing work in Seattle and New York. Here is a spreadsheet where people who are losing work can post their needs and those who have jobs not impacted by closures can send them money.
Also, a reminder for those starting new mutual aid groups, pods, and projects, that it is so important to focus not just on what we are doing together, but on how we are treating each other while we do it and how we can build groups that people stay in for the long haul. This means building strong group culture. Here are two resources that might help your group build some shared ideas about how you want the work to feel. This is a chart about organizational culture and this is a chart about ways of being in leadership that are based in mutuality, not dominance. And there are a bunch more resources about forming groups here.
It is also a GREAT TIME to write to people in prison. Check out these resources about how to find a pen pal in prison.
Share this video with friends and neighbors to start a conversation about mutual aid!
