Mutual Aid Disaster Relief strives to support locally rooted groups in their response and inspire more affinity groups to act, more collectives to form, and more organizations to coalesce. We don’t want to supplant or replace spontaneous manifestations of mutual aid and we don’t undo the need for emergent groups to form. Instead, we seek to build relationships with, learn from, and listen to locally rooted groups in our on-the-ground response work.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is opposed to disaster colonialism. The real first responders are the people most affected on the ground, and we respect this in our analysis and approach. Other groups with varying beliefs and structures have and will continue to respond to crisis. We want to make clear that we support and want to amplify local emergent response groups, (such as the Centros de Apoyo Mutuo, West Street Recovery, etc.,) but we certainly don’t speak for them or any other autonomous, independent disaster response or mutual aid efforts. We aim to speak and live out our truths while lifting up the voices of those doing similar work.