Mutual aid is an organisational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This can include resources like food, clothing, to medicine and services like breakfast programmes to education. These groups are often built for the daily needs of their communities, but mutual aid groups are also found throughout relief efforts, such as in natural disasters to pandemics like COVID-19. Resources are shared unconditionally, contrasting this model from charity where conditions for gaining access to help are often set, such as means testing or grant stipulations. These groups often go beyond material or service exchange and are setup as a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions. Mutual aid groups are distinct in their drive to flatten hierarchy, searching for collective consensus decision making across participating people rather than placing leadership within a closed executive team. With this joint decision making, all participating members are empowered to enact change and take responsibility for the group. Source: Wikipedia (en)