Introduction
What is mutual aid? Here is an introductory zine to get you started with the practice of mutual aid by Josie Sparrow. It is free to download, print, distribute.
A NOTE: I made this zine for absolute beginners, including people perhaps without fully-worked-out political or theoretical commitments. The intention is not to give people a full education, nor to nail down what mutual aid ‘is’. Rather, I wanted to provide some small tools that can get people started with the practice of mutual aid. Doing is the best political education!
Comrades and long-term organisers will no doubt find much to criticise in this necessarily limited & partial account. I wouldn’t have it any other way! Thanks so much to all readers.
In love and solidarity,
josie sparrow
Contents
What Is Mutual Aid? 4
Basic Principles 5
Getting Started 6
Podmapping 7
What Next? 8
Doing Mutual Aid 9
On Alienation 10
Difficulties 11
Resources 12
Excerpts
I don’t believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people. – Eduardo Galeano
Access Resource
Mutual Aid: An Introduction (PDF 12 pgs)
Explore Further
- Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Workshop Facilitation Guide
- Keeping Each Other Safe When Virtually Organizing Mutual Aid
- Navigating Trauma in Disaster Relief
- How to Make your Community Space into a Hub for Local Resilience and Mutual Aid
- Resources for Disaster Relief and Recovery
- How to share: 300 guides to help your community thrive
- The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters
- SolidarityWorks: Learning lab for mobilizing grassroots organizers to build new social infrastructure
- Leaderful Organizing Tool: Resilience Trees
- Resources for Disaster Relief and Recovery
- Guide to Developing Resilience Hubs, Urban Sustainability Directors Network
- Resilient & Ready Together: A Community Resilience and Disaster Preparedness Guide, Transition US
- Organising: Start Here