Mutual aid

Mutual aid is cooperation in which people support one another through reciprocal assistance. It is organized around shared needs and participants’ capacity to give and receive help.

Reciprocity: Reciprocity is the practice of responding to benefits or harms with corresponding actions. Mutual aid depends on people giving and receiving support across relationships.
Peter Kropotkin: Peter Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist, geographer, and writer who argued that cooperation supports survival. His book Mutual Aid helped establish the concept as an argument against social-Darwinist competition.
Disaster response: Disaster response comprises actions to protect people and meet urgent needs during and after a disaster. Local aid networks can deliver supplies and information quickly when formal responses lag.
Charity: Charity is voluntary assistance given to people in need, commonly through donations or organized services. Charity often separates donors from recipients, while mutual aid emphasizes shared participation.
Social capital: Social capital consists of resources accessible through relationships, networks, and shared norms. Repeated mutual support can strengthen trust and connections within a community.
Solidarity economy: A solidarity economy organizes production, exchange, and consumption around cooperation and social goals. It extends mutual-aid principles into durable economic arrangements.
Friendly society: A friendly society is a voluntary association whose members pool resources to provide benefits during hardship. Such associations offered organized reciprocal support before modern welfare systems.
Food bank: A food bank is an organization that collects and distributes food to people facing food insecurity. Unlike many mutual-aid groups, food banks typically distribute resources through a provider-recipient structure.
Welfare state: A welfare state uses public policy and services to protect people against poverty and social risks. Public entitlements provide support through institutions rather than primarily through reciprocal community relationships.
Collective efficacy: Collective efficacy is a group's shared belief in its capacity to achieve goals through coordinated action. Mutual-aid work can help communities develop confidence in acting together.

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