‘The strength of people's hearts': Venezuelan doctors, neighbors unite

In India, citizen-led small-scale digital efforts are helping to connect Covid-19 patients with the resources, supplies, and medical equipment they need to survive. The citizen groups are largely using online platforms to crowdsource what they need, with some matching buyers and sellers and others "debunking inaccurate leads."

During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, volunteers across Belarus worked together to collect and deliver personal protective equipment to frontline workers, despite the Belarusian government denying the spread of the coronavirus. Using social media to organize, the volunteers "served as a kind of SWAT team able to bypass the bureaucracy to obtain the necessary equipment."

Once regarded as the region in Sao Paulo with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths, Brasilandia residents mobilized their community to create a volunteer solidarity network that encouraged people to stay at home. The effort started with just a handful of participants but grew to over 200 volunteers with each new addition joining an action plan team that utilized a different form of campaigning, such as music or art. Since the implementation of the network Brasilandia "went from 1st to 2nd highest number of COVID-19 related deaths in the city."

Because they have the appropriate ingredients and facilities, Deep Ellum Distillery is making hand santizer and offering it for free to anyone who needs it. They are also endorsing people to order food to-go in order to support other local restaurants during the pandemic. Distilleries across the country are doing the same thing to help out their neighbors.

To help protect the predominantly Black community in Sedgwick County, Kansas, the county collaborated with local leaders and residents to create an information and messaging campaign that specifically addressed community concerns. Although the funding allocated to these efforts wasn't as plentiful as community leaders were asking for, the targeted outreach has helped to increase communication and trust around public health messaging.

A group of health professionals known as Latinx Advocacy Team & Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19, or LATIN-19, is helping to bring coronavirus-specific health care access to North Carolina's Latino community. Because the group operates across county lines, they have become well-known amongst the local communities, helping to not only provide much-needed health care services, but also increase awareness around the dangers of the virus.

Although many mutual aid networks have formed to serve a need during the coronavirus pandemic, the concept has been in practice for centuries and has "deep roots in communities of color." While these grassroots community efforts aren't always referred to as mutual aid, they have nonetheless come into existence to provide economic stability for communities and individuals when governmental structures have failed to do so.

In Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood, a community effort is underway that aims to do "nothing but positive things." During the coronavirus pandemic, the group of volunteers has held fundraisers for community members who are facing financial struggles and handed out masks and face shields. The efforts resulted in the group receiving a Covid-19 emergency support grant that helped them create the Garden of Life – "a grassroots gathering place where people can celebrate life and remember those who have passed away."

Lacking assistance from the government during the coronavirus pandemic, residents in one of the largest favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil organized to raise funds and launch a series of initiatives to protect their community. Although not all were supportive of the efforts – which included residents acting as neighborhood monitors and using two schools as quarantine shelters – the community has been able to reduce transmission and keep the case count manageable.

Two community living facilities have played integral roles in combatting the spread of diseases throughout New York's history by relying on mutual aid models. In the 1980's the Manhattan Plaza residence started the AIDS Project, which "assigned care partners to every person who got sick and deployed volunteers to deliver meals and get people to doctors." Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat, similar efforts are underway by a younger generation at the Manhattan Plaza as well as at Penn South where the focus has been on keeping senior citizens safe.