Campaign Nonviolence Youth Collective Participates In Mutual Aid

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
―Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Australian (Murri) activist

As the newly-launched Campaign Nonviolence Youth Collective (ages 16-23) began to gather and plan monthly actions, it made sense to start with mutual aid. Anchored in a sense of solidarity between community members, this approach to sharing resources is a core act of nonviolent resistance.

“Mutual aid is an idea and practice that is based on the principles of direct action, cooperation, mutual understanding, and solidarity. Mutual aid is not charity, but the building and continuing of new social relations where people give what they can and get what they need, outside of unjust systems of power.”

Mutual aid participants work together to meet each other’s needs while organizing to dismantle the system that caused the shortage in the first place. Mutual aid networks supply food, medical care, housing, disaster relief, direct action support, tools, knowledge, etc. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, these networks erupted across the United States, helping displaced university students move back home, supporting workers who got sick, assisting families threatened by eviction, handing out masks and hand sanitizer, and more.

But it is the spirit of the action as much as the deed that makes mutual aid a revolutionary act. As the Campaign Nonviolence Youth Collective discovered, almost anything can be mutual aid, if done with solidarity and an eye to dismantling oppression. Here are some of their action reports on how they participated in mutual aid. 

Since COVID rates are very high in Wisconsin, Akasha Ford contributed some of her scarce resources to COVID quarantine and medical support through the Madison General Defense Committee through the Mutual Aid Hub website. “I see it as sort of a double action—helping (with) COVID, which is necessary when living in a state with a heavily Republican legislature which keeps pushing back restrictions and endangering people, as well as helping lower income people who may not be able to support themselves if they have to quarantine or hospitalize. (This) creates a community that intentionally helps each other in times of need.”

Cathy Nguyen and a group of friends collected snacks, soups, and toiletries and dropped them off at students-helping-students hub. “I saw donating to the Nova Nook as charity without the power dynamic or any of the "fuss", as I feel what mutual aid is supposed to be. Because everything is completely anonymous and there is no system you have to go through, giving something to the Nova Nook is helping one another for the sake of becoming in right relationship with each other.” 

Sofia Maciejewski, the President & Founder of the Women in Politics Club in Sherwood, OR, is working with a local women’s shelter to get students to bring period products or undergarments. “I think that when people help each other out, it helps people to understand each other and bring some peace.”  

Zak Vilanilam took a personal and direct approach. He reached out to someone he knew and  offered some student-to-student mutual aid on studying for a critical test. “Instead of attending a formal mutual aid program, I engaged in a project where I helped my friend prepare for the SAT. The bonds we built will help us build a community and act in solidarity.”

Alejandro Abarca has an ongoing practice of solidarity with unhoused friends. “I went to my homeless friends and spoke with them and brought them food. Many of them get moved from location to location by the police so it was a change seeing some that I knew. In preparing for the bad weather this week I brought them clothes and food. I hope soon enough more places are open for them in San Antonio for shelter and it promotes a healthy relationship with them.”

As the Campaign Nonviolence Youth Collective studies and organizes nonviolent action on a range of issues, starting with the constructive, deep solidarity of mutual aid is foundational.  The early Labor Movement mobilized mutual aid to support tens of thousands of striking workers. Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers set up a credit union to offer support to one another. Mohandas K. Gandhi urged his fellow Indians to engage in constructive program as a way to build local self-rule and liberation from oppression, as well as the collective strength to wage nonviolent struggle to end injustice. 

Mutual aid is the spirit and substance of how we help one another resist the systemic injustices we face. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." Or, as powerhouse organizer Fanny Lou Hamer put it, “Nobody is free until everybody is free.” With mutual aid, we start with the essentials of survival, taking care of the needs of our communities in ways that ready us to wage struggle for justice. It’s powerful. It’s revolutionary. It’s nonviolent action in spirit and deed.

You can find a local mutual aid network here. Learn more about the Campaign Nonviolence Youth Collective here. Not a youth and still longing to be part of a group like this? Join the Campaign Nonviolence Affinity Groups.