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Caledonian & Barnsbury Wards Covid Mutual Aid

Coordinates mutual aid in the Caledonian/Barnsbury wards of Islington

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Top financial contributors

Individuals

1
Incognito

£8,050 GBP since Apr 2020

2
Miriam Bruder

£5,650 GBP since Aug 2021

3
Incognito

£3,900 GBP since Oct 2023

4
Incognito

£2,200 GBP since Sep 2020

5
Katy Amberley

£1,080 GBP since May 2020

6
James Down

£866.89 GBP since Nov 2020

7
Incognito

£850 GBP since Apr 2020

8
Incognito

£775 GBP since Nov 2020

9
Incognito

£625 GBP since May 2020

10
John Farndon

£590 GBP since Apr 2020

Organizations

1
Highbury Vale Blackstock Trust

£9,400 GBP since Jun 2020

3
The Social Change Nest

£5,780 GBP since Apr 2020

4
Highbury Vale Blackstock Trust

£800 GBP since Sep 2020

5
ARK coworking

£280.82 GBP since Dec 2021

6
Canonbury Mutual Aid

£100 GBP since Sep 2020

Caledonian & Barnsbury Wards Covid Mutual Aid is all of us

Our contributors 121

Thank you for supporting Caledonian & Barnsbury Wards Covid Mutual Aid.

Highbury Vale...

£9,400 GBP

incognito

£8,050 GBP

Blessed Sacra...

£6,645 GBP

The Social Ch...

£5,780 GBP

Miriam Bruder

£5,650 GBP

Incognito

£3,900 GBP

Incognito

backer

£2,200 GBP

Katy Amberley

£1,080 GBP

James Down

£867 GBP

incognito

£850 GBP

Stay strong everyone!

Budget


Transparent and open finances.

Contribution #705118
Contribution #462055
Contribution #91622
£
Today’s balance

£8,132.31 GBP

Total raised

£55,932.52 GBP

Total disbursed

£47,800.21 GBP

Estimated annual budget

£4,380.00 GBP

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Let’s get the ball rolling!

News from Caledonian & Barnsbury Wards Covid Mutual Aid

Updates on our activities and progress.

We are shutting this page down now

HI everyone A massive thank you to everyone who has supported this collective effort in the last few years. The mutual aid group is no longer active, and so we are transferring the remaining balance to the Copenhagen Street Foodbank who we...
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Published on November 29, 2022 by Kevin Smith

Here we are in the second wave

How is everyone doing? It’s tough for all kinds of reasons to be back in the second lockdown, but we can still look out for each other and lend a hand to our neighbours when they need it. ***We wanted to share that we have a new phone numbe...
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Published on November 16, 2020 by Kevin Smith

Our foodbank needs your help!

It’s been a pretty rough five months since the pandemic started, but we are so proud of what we have achieved in our community. Ordinary folks from across the Caledonian and Barnsbury Wards have pulled together to provide really important s...
Read more
Published on August 24, 2020 by Kevin Smith

About


We are a group of people who live in the Caledonian and Barnsbury wards of Islington who have come together to promote and coordinate mutual aid during the Covid-19 lockdown.

This fund has been created to both  help complement food donations for our weekly food bank in which we deliver food parcels and hot meals to households in need and to cover the costs of providing some basic needs for those self-isolating and unable to cover these costs. This would be used in emergency scenarios as we do not want to replace the day-to-day payment of people picking up groceries and prescriptions.

We intentionally DON'T want to create a large pool of money with this. We just want to have a small pool of ongoing money that we can use to cover expenses where necessary. We don't want this fund to replace the day-to-day payment of people who are picking up groceries and prescriptions.

Our group does not have any external affiliations except loose ones to other local mutual aid groups. Our group of about 12 coordinators for the wards of Caledonian and Barnsbury mostly did not know each other before we came together a few weeks ago. A few of us happen to be members of political parties e.g. the Labour Party, but most are not and it’s absolutely not a requirement for coordinators or volunteers to have a particular external political commitment. We won’t tolerate any kind of spam, abuse or demeaning language in our groups, but other than that we welcome people of all political persuasions.

That doesn’t mean there are no politics at all involved in mutual aid - it’s just not politics in the usual sense. For example in our coordinating work we place an emphasis on helping the disadvantaged, as they are even worse affected by this crisis, and some of their current problems stem more from structural economic disadvantages than the virus.

In addition, mutual aid has a long history that carries with it commitments to a few important ideas:

Mutual aid is just that, mutual, it goes both ways. There are no specialised classes of helpers and helpees. This is good because it means we all can both give and take, build our capabilities, and trust one another in the neighborhood. In this way it’s not like a charity, no one is a saviour and no one should be embarrassed to ask for help.

Mutual aid is also not like charity in other ways. Except for a very very small reserve of money to help buy food for the food bank if requests happen very suddenly, we don’t handle money, and generally avoid being part of the “nonprofit industrial complex”. No one gets paid, etc.

In addition we don’t have rules about who qualifies for help. We try to trust people to tell us what they need, rather than regulate them.

We’re also not part of the government. While we work from time to time with the local council because it’s in the best interest of the community (e.g. following NHS guidelines, coordinating with NHS about discharge patients, coordinating with the council about the food bank and food vouchers), we make decisions separately from them, and are well aware that there are issues with e.g. government policies or, for example, the way the police operate.

There are minimal hierarchical structures. We try to make decisions in a transparent way, by consensus and (as you can see) devolve decision-making to small local groups as much as possible. 

The goal is firstly the health of our community at this difficult time, but also the building of mutual support in the community for the long run.

We hope this makes sense and would be more than happy to answer any questions that you have about this. You can also see some good resources on the long and fascinating history of mutual aid here: http://bigdoorbrigade.com/what-is-mutual-aid/

Our team