Tucsonans take care of each other through mutual aid efforts

Following a similar trend in cities throughout the world, Tucsonans have organized on their own in recent weeks to help support their neighbors and strangers through various mutual aid projects and groups.

The basic philosophy of mutual aid is “solidarity not charity” says Megan Cox, who has been involved in health care work, advocacy and community organizing for many years and who is organizing a group of volunteers making hand sanitizer for people who are homeless.

“It’s about community supporting community, it isn’t about a top-down approach to support within a community,” Cox says. “It’s about sharing resources equitably and really about activating community networks to help meet needs not being met by the system.”

Stephanie Noriega, another mutual aid group organizer who has spent several years working in social service and who now works in advocacy at the University of Arizona describes it as small acts by everyday people to support each other.