Philadelphia Mutual Aid
We exist to facilitate and support mutual aid and build solidarity among the many disparate marginalized communities in Philadelphia
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About
We exist to provide mutual aid within the queer and trans communities of Philadelphia and in the most underserved Neighborhoods of Philadelphia, those most effected by substance use, poverty, and gun violence.
This includes outreach and harm reduction services to mitigate deteriorations in the social determinants of health (SDOH) across the communities of the most underserved parts of Philadelphia. We operate on a mutual aid model and believe transparency is of the utmost importance in this work. We have seen personally the lack of transparency and corporate hierarchical culture of the NGOs involved in this work in our city and we believe that culture is the main blocker to achieving these organizations stated goals which always take a back seat to regulations imposed by funding sources.
Colloquially we would say that no NGO can actually solve the problems they are tasked with solving because once the number of people who's livelihoods are derived from the job of solving the problem grows past 30-50, the organizations involved shift their main focus to sustaining themselves and the livelihoods of those that are employed there, and the actual work takes a very distant back seat.
We are explicitly a Mutual Aid Collective and NOT a political advocacy organization, we view electoral politics as a dead end that exists only to co-opt grassroots movements and provide a place to absorb progressive minded people into neoliberal organizations that can not actually reform the system by design. We will never make political contributions, buy political advertising, or otherwise participate in the electoral system beyond working with our elected representatives in the areas we serve to coordinate and direct resources to the communities we are in service to.
We aren't interested in fighting the existing order, we are interested in building something better that makes those organizations obsolete.
This includes outreach and harm reduction services to mitigate deteriorations in the social determinants of health (SDOH) across the communities of the most underserved parts of Philadelphia. We operate on a mutual aid model and believe transparency is of the utmost importance in this work. We have seen personally the lack of transparency and corporate hierarchical culture of the NGOs involved in this work in our city and we believe that culture is the main blocker to achieving these organizations stated goals which always take a back seat to regulations imposed by funding sources.
Colloquially we would say that no NGO can actually solve the problems they are tasked with solving because once the number of people who's livelihoods are derived from the job of solving the problem grows past 30-50, the organizations involved shift their main focus to sustaining themselves and the livelihoods of those that are employed there, and the actual work takes a very distant back seat.
We are explicitly a Mutual Aid Collective and NOT a political advocacy organization, we view electoral politics as a dead end that exists only to co-opt grassroots movements and provide a place to absorb progressive minded people into neoliberal organizations that can not actually reform the system by design. We will never make political contributions, buy political advertising, or otherwise participate in the electoral system beyond working with our elected representatives in the areas we serve to coordinate and direct resources to the communities we are in service to.
We aren't interested in fighting the existing order, we are interested in building something better that makes those organizations obsolete.
PMAC, 2023
Our team
El Maricón
Admin
Cassandra Idris
Admin