Repression vs. Resilience
Several police vehicles, an armored tactical vehicle, and law enforcement personnel including swat team pointed their guns at relief workers while surrounding and then entering our base of operations in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico in the [...]
No Longer Forgotten
As the days grind up in number, creating time and distance from the thrashing winds and surging inundation of the deluge of water hurricane Maria pulled over Puerto Rico, statistics remain alien from the view [...]
Growing the Movement for Mutual Aid – Invite Trainers and Prepare Your Community for Grassroots Direct Action Disaster Response
Climate Chaos is happening. Adaptation and preparation are essential. Grassroots disaster response will be more and more necessary as we see more catastrophes – infrastructure, economic, and ecological collapses – and as corporations and governments seek [...]
Building A Future Based On Mutual Aid
We drove through neighborhoods in the mountains with local residents and our comrades from Guaynabo, delivered food, cases of water, water purification tablets, and provided health care to elderly residents and their families sweltering in [...]
Building Power While The Lights Are Out
A land abandoned is one in which no one has come to respond. That's not the case in Puerto Rico. Thousands of fema/military/ fbi/police and others have flooded the island and where, at first, we [...]
Resistance is Disaster Relief
On this day, we must remember that for some communities, disasters have been unfolding for centuries, depriving people of life and liberty every single day. Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been attacked and oppressed [...]
Resistance against Colonialism and Neoliberalism; Solidarity with Puerto Rico and the Caribbean
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is organizing response teams to continually travel to Puerto Rico and surrounding areas to assist with rebuilding sustainable, modular water and energy systems to provide immediate, life-saving relief and long-term, permanent [...]
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in Mexico
Here are the latest sights, from Jojutla, Morelos. More words follow. I joined a group of therapists on a scouting mission We learned a lot, primarily that the army is in charge but no one [...]
Where Non-Profits Fear to Go: Report From Florida
The following is a report back for a relief trip to the Florida Keys made possible by the work of numerous folks involved with Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR). The immense amount of support and [...]
¡Organizers Assemble! Call for Mutual Aid in México
Amigxs Méxicanxs y todxs que tienen conexiónes en México - ¡necesito ustedes apoyo! Trabajo con un grupo voluntario que respuesta a desastre en Jojutlan, Morelos, una ciudad devestado por el terremoto. Este grupo quiere a [...]
The Speed of Dreams’ Resonance
Our weeks, like our hearts, have been so full lately. As the phases of relief and recovery transition rapidly, we are reminded how much work is still in front of us. We ask ourselves, how [...]
Living Autonomy: Anarchists Organize Relief Efforts in Florida
Recently we spoke with Dezeray about her organizing with Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) in the weeks since Hurricane Irma and how spaces such as the hub in Tampa are crucial sites for building solidarity [...]
A sense of things: Houston 09/10 – 09/15 2017
I first want to express my gratitude and love for the hospitality shown to me by the folks I met in Houston. I believe that the most important thing that those of us from outside [...]
Disaster Elitism vs. Communal Solidarity
Navigating forth, there are many communities that are still in utter shambles from the hurricane. And while FEMA guards structures of wealth, autonomous mobilizations have been getting supplies into the hands of those [...]
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief as Antidote to Corporate Colonialism
But there are alternatives, and there are real solutions. Those solutions come from below. They come from the power of the people, which is incredibly vast, if only we have the vision and the courage to recognize it. We need radical responses to natural and unnatural disasters. We need communities that are eager to build power, eager to adapt, and eager to serve those who are neglected by a system which empowers only those who already have the most power. I saw, in post-Katrina New Orleans, the power that We The People have when we work together. I saw the efforts of ordinary people, organized, dedicated, and listening compassionately, able to rescue schools and entire neighborhoods from the gentrifying bulldozers. And I saw groups led by poor people of color rise to challenge the legitimacy of city and state government, FEMA, and the Red Cross. In disasters or other chaotic scenarios we can often make great strides in short time by filling vacancies left by “power vaccuums” (when the government and other established authorities temporarily disappear). In more stable times, we can still steadily gain power by organizing, struggling, fighting, utilizing our strengths (moral, relational, artistic); by acting strategically, creatively, bravely, diversely; and by never giving up. ...