Journalist Amanda Arnold describes mutual aid as systems where “people work cooperatively to meet the needs of everyone in the community.” Mutual aid teaches us that there’s no need to wait for help to arrive because we are our own best solutions.
Unlike charity, which is one directional and often a single occurrence, mutual aid is reciprocal between community members and seeks to address the root causes of an issue as much as possible.
And unlike government aid, mutual aid is not hierarchical and originates with the people closest to the problem, enabling it to be much quicker, more targeted, and accountable to the needs of a community. It is often crowd-sourced, arising from the reality that we all need help from our communities to survive.
Unlike charity, which is one directional and often a single occurrence, mutual aid is reciprocal between community members.