What do volunteering and golf have in common?

At Distribute Aid, we like to get right to the point. So here you go:

Volunteering, like golf, is widely considered to be an activity for people with lots of free time and disposable income. 

In the world of humanitarian aid, this is a particularly thorny issue. The debate over “voluntourism” has been raging for years, and it’s not one that will be resolved in this newsletter. 

However, we do think Distribute Aid’s approach can be an example of a different model that delivers better results—both in the immediate term, and for years to come.

Mutual aid: it’s not just for anarchists anymore

Work in traditional disaster response long enough, and you notice a pattern of power imbalance. There are victims and saviors, with the two groups often split by race, economic status, and  geographic origin. 

The saviors generously donate their time, effort, money, and goods. In return, the victims are expected to make tearful expressions of gratitude and pose for heartwarming pictures. To put it plainly: this model sucks. 

Mutual aid, on the other hand, puts people on an even playing field. Outside organizations can deliver the vital supplies and services that disaster-stricken communities need. Meanwhile, the people of those communities can take the lead in the rebuilding process.

To illustrate, here’s a story from the Mória refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Often described as an open-air prison (or worse), Mória was packed with over 20,000 refugees—and when COVID hit in 2020, the Greek authorities provided no PPE of any kind.

Many women in the camp were skilled artisans, so we and our partners decided to send them the equipment and materials to make their own PPE. In a matter of weeks, the women made 100,000 masks for people in the camp. But they still had more material, as well as a drive to create. So they made 10,000 masks to send to Black Lives Matter advocates in the United States. Then they made 6,000 for refugees in other parts of Europe.

The mask makers of Mória were women of incredible dignity, care, and solidarity. They had skills; they had agency. And with every box of supplies they shipped out of the refugee camp, they strengthened the bonds between (as they put it) “one group seeking freedom to another.”

But could mutual aid be right for you?

Yes! And if you’re one of the many, many people feeling despondent about the current state of the world, getting involved in mutual aid might be one of the most fulfilling decisions you can make.

If volunteering is like golf, think of mutual aid as a neighborhood walking club. The time commitment is more flexible: if you have 10 hours a week to share, great! If you have only two, there are ways to make those count just as much. Mutual aid is also more inclusive. Regardless of your physical or financial situation, it’s easy to get involved.

For example, inventory management volunteers are crucial to Distribute Aid’s work. They ensure we’re sending the right items to the right destination in the right quantities. This is work that can be done by people with disabilities, or people who are undocumented. You don’t have to put yourself at risk to make a difference. 

We also designed our Open Source Explorer program—which creates the tech tools that run our website, process our donations, and more—so that people could contribute remotely, for a few hours per week.

The flexibility of mutual aid is what makes it so powerful. Time and location constraints are some of the most frequently cited reasons for people not getting involved in humanitarian aid. These are reasonable concerns, but they’re not insurmountable ones. And in fact, countless mutual aid organizations around the world have devised strategies for overcoming them.

So do a little light googling and check out your local options. If there’s no mutual aid organization near you… well, start your own! It sure beats doomscrolling another day away.

Quick hits

Here are a few more things you might find interesting:

• Local expertise for the win! In April 2020, the UN predicted that up to 3.3 million Africans could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19. Five years on, Africa's recorded COVID-19 death toll stands at just over 175,500. Here’s how they did it.

• Last week’s verdict against Greenpeace finding it liable for damages to a pipeline company could set a very dangerous precedent for peaceful protests.

• The UN Secretary General says assistance to the world’s largest refugee camp could fall by 40% due to the Trump Administration’s brutal cutbacks on foreign aid.

• France is planning how to adapt for a 4°C increase in global temperatures by the end of the century—which is deeply alarming for countries that don’t have the resources for extensive climate change mitigations.

• To counterbalance the heavy news we just shared, please enjoy this video that University of Auckland researchers took of an octopus riding a shark.

• Have you heard about QuiltCon? Our partners Wrap the world in quilts showed up this year to bring more attention to charitable quilting. Just look at these gorgeous quilts! 🤤