Mutual Aid
What is Mutual Aid?
Mutual aid is when people come together to meet each other's needs. This usually happens because the systems that are supposed to meet these needs often don't, and sometimes they are the very reason those needs exist in the first place. In practice, this might look sharing food, covering rent, redistributing money or passing knowledge and skills.
How is it different from Charity?
Charity usually comes from the top down: someone with money or power decides who deserves help, how much they get, and what they have to do to get it. Mutual aid skips a lot of this. People share with each other, everyone can give and receive and most people end up doing both. It stems from an understanding that going without is more about how things are set up, and not about individual or personal failure. Essentially, it's about solidarity rather than charity.
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On this land, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and the other Kulin nations cared for Country and each other long before colonisation, and still do. One local example of mutual aid that responds to this is Pay the Rent, which started as a mutual aid policy of the National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation in the 1970s. Today the Pay The Rent Grassroots Collective is based on Kulin lands. Non-Indigenous people make regular payments, and a Sovereign Body of First Nations people decide how the money is redistributed.
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If you're wondering where to begin, we've gathered a list of mutual aid groups and related resources below.
Mutual Aid Resources
It's not all of them by any means, just a starting point. 🍀 Know of one we've missed? Let us know at hello@chibiandesme.com and we'll add it! :)