What is Mutual Aid?

Our modern concept of mutual aid can be traced back to ancient African, indigenous, and brown cultures.

In mutual aid, people work together to provide for one another's immediate survival because they know that the systems they currently live under will not.

Mutual aid projects encourage people to take on the responsibility of caring for one another. They alter political conditions by constructing new social relations that are more resilient. Most mutual aid programs are run by volunteers who want to make a material difference today rather than waiting for businesses or governments to intervene in current crises.

Mutual aid runs under the slogan solidarity not charity, and involves people at all levels of a community respecting one another’s autonomy as they support each other. Charitable systems, in contrast, often support the continuation of conditions that keep BIPOC and poor people under control, and create divisions within communities by deciding who is deserving enough to participate and receive support.