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Rebecca Nathanson, “Friends in Need”
In the mutualista movement of the late 1800s, aid was sometimes referred to as mutual protection. “It’s power to protect what you value, to pool information,” Pycior explains. “Today, it would be pooling information vis-à-vis ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], for example. And that was true in these early ones.” The challenge for mutual aid projects that form in the depths of a crisis can often come later, when momentum dwindles, opportunities diminish, and a sense of normalcy returns. But Mutual Aid Disaster Relief has managed to maintain a sense of continuity between crises, particularly as these increase in frequency.…
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Katie Wills Evans, “When Teachers Practice Mutual Aid, the Whole School Thrives”
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,…
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Ali Kelly, “What public service can learn from mutual aid”
Communities often lack access to resources and the time required to support each other. Public Officials should examine policies that prevent communities from supporting one another and ensure that policies promote community access to resources and capacity required. Mutual aid is built on community. Too often public service intervention has served to disperse communities; either through relocation, family separation or incarceration. There are numerous policies and regulations in force that frustrate communities from supporting one another. Source Link