“For me, mutual aid is so much more than just an organizing theory. Mutual aid for me is always based on mutual respect and mutual reciprocity. That's just something that's been instilled in me my whole life. My mother was born in a refugee camp, she had 8 brothers and sisters and her parents living in a tent and they had to take care of eachother, because there was no other option. Even when my mom emigrated to the United States and was working full time, she was always helping out our neighbors whether it was bringing meals or bread or clothes when kids needed it, so I saw that as a kid and just thought it was normal; we take care of eachother. And I got a little older and I saw that wasn’t always the case, especially in predominantly white communities where there’s this very capitalistic ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps' ethos that gets pushed on us from a young age so that once you’re 18 it’s like ‘You gotta go, go be on your own, make a name for yourself’. And that’s just a complete capitalistic myth, because no one's ever done anything on their own. A lot of those same people have a lot of privilege. But how we can combat that is by coming together and building these really strong community ties. You start that mutual aid relationship by walking up to someone who looks like they need help and asking ‘Do you need help?’ which is so different from just showing up somewhere with a bunch of medicine or food and telling a community what they need. Thats the big difference, really building those relationships where you’re working together, you’re not working for them and they’re not working for you - nothing is expected from either side and the end goal is that everybody is taken care of.”
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Our week long programming series, Let the Youth Lead, was done in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to uplift the work of our community to youth across the world. The day we dedicate our lives to organizing for human rights, we are putting Dr. King’s dream into action. We are the Dream.
#SpringBreakOut #MLK #WeAreTheDream
These are profile videos of our panelist who spoke to us virtually about community organizing spring 2020! The five days of programming covered how to use your voice, what is mutual aid, promoting a rally, knowing your rights and art for social change.
These discussions were recorded live on our Youtube channel - please check them out. #SpringBreakOut #MLK #WeAreTheDream
