We’re joined this week by Brandon of Sacramento Community Fridges, a mutual aid project designed to help neighbors in need during the coronavirus era keep food on their tables. In just a few months, @sacfridge4all has done a lot of incredible work, with four fridge and pantry locations established throughout Sacramento, and two more opening soon.

Mutual Aid is an integral part of community health, working together to ensure we all survive and prosper. In this video we introduce the importance of mutual aid, the benefits of volunteering in local action, how to start your own support network, and we cover some basic networking techniques to expand your social sphere.

“There is a really great opportunity in the vacuum of disaster relief” according to a co-founder of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, or MAD Relief for short, who goes by the name Rain.

Dual power can be explained as the building of a transitional program for political, social, and economic transformation. It creates survival programs to oppose state power and creates a new type of autonomous public sector when the state fails the people. This is how to go beyond protest to building an anarchist societal infrastructure.

MEP-EP11
Topic: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
Guest Jimmy Dunson

Racial justice, police accountability, mutual aid, climate activism and warp-speed vaccines – we examine the ways our COVID-19 year changed American society.

This online teach-in is for mutual aid groups facing nuts and bolts issues that come with the work we’ve all been doing. How has your group been funneling money to people in need, and what are the tax consequences? How should we store money we raise? Do we need to consider incorporating, having a fiscal sponsor, or becoming a non-profit? What are the costs and benefits of each potential approach?

Many people across the United States are finally facing the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic. On the latest Intercepted: After weeks of downplaying the seriousness of the virus and at times implying it was a hoax, the Trump administration has announced a series of government responses to the crisis.

As lockdowns and layoffs sweep the U.S., mutual aid groups are forming to protect and provide for the vulnerable, including the elderly, incarcerated, undocumented and unhoused.

Cody, Robert and Katy talk to Scott Crow from Common Ground Collective about how we can help each other and build solidarity while the government debates about tax incentives and means testing.

History and principles of Mutual Aid from the Highlander Center

Mutual-aid networks, which allow neighbors and community members to pool resources, have blossomed during the coronavirus crisis. We interview Christine Gatson-Michalak, co-founder of the Claremont Mutual Aid Project, about the biggest needs right now.

How to do Mutual Aid from the Highlander Center

Now more than 1,000 members strong, the Sunset Neighborhood Help Group is made entirely of volunteers and was sparked by just one person’s post offering to pick up groceries for those unable to leave their homes.

Mutual aid to mobilize and survive

We will be talking about Mutual Aid during COVID with Yaya Ogaldez of Mutual Aid Diaster Relief RVA, Kelly Henriquez of Masks for Essential Retail RVA, Yanet Amado - Student Organizer (UndocuRams + beyond) and soon-to-be VCU graduate, and Haydi Torres of Movimiento Cosecha.

This week, we feature two conversations. Cora Borradaile and Michele Gretes, folks involved in the Digital Security Project of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, speak about contact tracing apps and surveillance. Then, Se speaks about Tucson Food Share’s grocery distribution program.

How One Woman Created a Radical System of Community Care at the Heart of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the last few months, there has been an immense amount of collective grief in our communities. We grieve the lives lost to a global pandemic, particularly the ways that the failures of infrastructure and prevailing medical ableist attitudes have devalued Black and Indigenous people, elders, and disabled people, further exacerbating existing healthcare inequalities and hierarchies of valued and devaluated life.

You are listening to Solidarity Chats: a special section of the Contra* podcast on disability, design justice, and the life world. These episodes, recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, focus on disability, eugenics, and mutual aid. This is Aimi Hamraie, and I’m so excited to be here with Jay Salazar from the Disability Justice Culture Club.

You are listening to Solidarity Chats: a special section of the Contra* podcast on disability, design justice, and the life world. This is Aimi Hamraie. I'm excited to be here with Dasom Nah, who is a disabled educator and community organizer at Senior and Disability Action.

This is Aimi Hamraie and I am so thrilled to be here with Max Liboiron, Associate Professor of Geography and Associate Vice President of Indigenous Research at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

This is Aimi Hamraie, and I'm so pleased to be here with Embry Wood Owen who is a researcher on Disability and Public Space, and an organizer based in Philadelphia.

Antibody is a narrative series about how Covid-19 has changed everything and nothing at all. The mutual aid groups featured in this episode include: Ground Game LA (groundgamela.org) K Town For All (ktownforall.org) The Red Nation (therednation.org) Brave Space Alliance (bravespacealliance.org) and the Indigenous Kinship Collective (indigenouskinshipcollective.com).

In the first episode of a new podcast series – The Feeling’s Mutual – Bob is joined by co-host Maff Potts, founder at Camerados, independent changemaker Ruth Jackson, and Carly Attridge, founder and director at the Loss Project, to talk openly about the concept of mutual aid – and why it might have gone missing in action.

The public response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of much-needed hope. Thousands of spontaneous, voluntary Mutual Aid groups have emerged to support the most vulnerable people in our society. They are supplying food and medicine, connecting with those who are lonely, and organising community resources. In many cases these groups have been able to help people far more rapidly and flexibly than traditional public services.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has seen record-breaking unemployment rates by US citizens. With many people out of work and unable to pay living expenses, food scarcity is on the rise as the economy reels. Undocumented immigrants and people living in particularly low socioeconomic neighborhoods, have felt the raft of being unable to pay for food and provide for their families. During this time, we’ve seen many mutual aid projects form throughout New York City and New Jersey, where community residents are taking the initiative to care for those unable able to receive adequate assistance from the government.

In the second episode of our new podcast series, co-hosts Bob Thust and Maff Potts are joined by Dr Simon Kaye, Senior Policy Researcher at New Local Government Network, and Pat Fernandes, a Community Financial Inclusion Manager at Advice for Renters.

With the global and local effects of COVID-19 bearing down on us and without any clear expectation of when it might end, it's as important as ever to take care of our communities. In this episode, we talk about the importance of mutual aid, the history of these networks, and why - if you haven't before - now is the time to seriously consider getting involved with them.

Scott Crow on Mutual Aid for Liberation (Joel Williamson Mix)

Why the rich and powerful can't be trusted

A Story of MAD RVA and Mutual Aid in Richmond, VA

This week, a very special edition of Heating Up! Derek and Corinne talk with Jimmy from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief about what mutual aid is, and why it may very well be the best hope for a better future in the age of climate catastrophes.

This week we have the opportunity to share a talk by Coco (they/them pronouns), who is a queer, Black, Puerto Rican anarchist about the recent 17 days of direct action against no-longer-governor Ricardo Rosselló and organizing as an anarchist after Hurricane Maria.

Activist and organizer Lisa Fithian looks back on decades of activism and paves a road forward for current movements in her new book, "Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance."

In the first segment, we hear from two organizers with the Centro de Apoyo Mutuo or Mutual Aid Center in Caguas, Puerto Rico. Emilu and Kique talk about Caguas, about the colonial relationship between the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico, the post-hurricane disaster relief they’ve been doing as a continuation of social organizing in the wake of that colonialism, and building a network of C-A-Ms around Puerto Rico.

Angela Davis, Social Justice Activist and Scholar, on Solidarity not Charity and how it relates to breaking down the prison-industrial complex.

This week I had the chance to speak to Ricchi, who is a Puerto Rican anarchist, about an autonomous squatted community center in Borique called Valle Garita. In this episode, we talk about the squatted space and the intentions of the organizers, plus the cultural context of squatting, reactions of the police, landlord, and bank, and some concrete asks for solidarity and support from non locals. We end the show with a brief report back and analysis of what went down on May Day in San Juan and all over Puerto Rico, so stay tuned for that!

This week on Act Out! UC workers strike but find a foe where the friendlies should be – an unfortunately familiar story. Next up, unemployment rates may be going down but what does that actually mean? Hint: no, our economy is not doing well. And neither are the soon-to-be-homeless elderly of Louisiana – because you know, budget cuts – and screw grandma. --- Finally, Alex Cohen of Earth Defense Coalition joins us to talk Puerto Rico – a colony wrestling with both climate change and colonial capitalism – and what aid and autonomy look like on the ground.

This week we had the opportunity to connect with Vanessa Bolin, who is an indigenous artist, community organizer, and activist who has been helping with flood rescue and rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Florence in Lumberton, NC, which is in Robeson County. In this interview we talk about what still needs to be done in this area, how to help out, some important parallels between post hurricane relief and anti pipeline organizing, and the importance of foregrounding marginalized voices in mutual aid efforts.

This week on The Final Straw Radio, we feature a conversation with Pearson, an anarchist resident of Tallahassee, Florida, and is involved in storm relief mutual aid work in the wake of Hurricane Michael. Pearson is also the co-host of the leftist podcast “Coffee With Comrades”.

This week we had the chance to talk to Sascha, who is a community organizer in the triangle area of North Carolina, about ongoing organizing to help rebuild and continue to aid folks after the multiple hurricanes recently hit this region. This interview went in directions that we couldn’t have predicted, and really went on a deep dive of how to conceptualize of disaster relief in our changing climate, in addition to more practical topics.

Hurricane Harvey has sparked comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans 12 years ago yesterday. The devastating storm killed more than 1,800 people and forced more than 1 million people to evacuate. Both the government and major aid agencies like the Red Cross were widely criticized for failing to respond adequately to the disaster. Instead, local residents took matters into their own hands, launching relief, recovery and mutual aid efforts such as the Common Ground Collective.

In this edition of The Solecast I speak with Frank Lopez about his recent trip to Puerto Rico. We discuss the failure of the state to act quickly enough and the devastation he witnessed. We talk about how the people of Puerto Rico are helping themselves and how anarchists have launched mutual aid projects in the region.

This is a The Final Straw Radio mini-episode and we just had a quick conversation with Assata, an activist and member Yellow Hammer Alternative, an Alabama-based far left autonomous mutual aid group. We talked about relief work done by Assata’s group around Hurricane Harvey, in Mobile with Food Not Bombs and in the run-up to Hurricanes Irma and Jose.

We speak with author, historian and activist Rebecca Solnit about her latest book that examines Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster chronicles both the crimes of the vigilantes and the powerful during Katrina, as well as the numerous instances of altruism, generosity and courage displayed by the vast majority of people who lived through this catastrophe.

It is six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans. People have lost their families, homes, and work. And now, at St. Augustine Church, the axe has just fallen: the archdiocese is about to close the parish and send Father LeDoux away. Why is this happening? Haven't the city's inhabitants already lost enough? Do they risk losing their faith as well?

In a time of crisis, a medical clinic has sprung to life in a storm-damaged New Orleans neighborhood, with an unlikely crew giving aid. Anarchists with medical training, calling themselves the Common Ground Collective, have set up shop in the beleaguered neighborhood of Algiers, providing locals with badly needed medical assistance.