Mutual Aid versus Charity

In our day-to-day, we typically think of there as being 2 main ways to help out disadvantaged communities such as the Disabled, Homeless, LGBTQIA+ Youth, etc. Those two are Government welfare and/or Charity, but Charity is not as great as it immediately seems, and can often act as a barrier to real assistance to those groups. Due to some shady non-profit practices, Bureaucracy, and lack of meaningful support from the charities in general. But there's a new kid on the block, or rather relatively new to the mainstream but a pretty old idea.

Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid is at its core an act of Solidarity, rather than relying on the hopes that a charity will help someone. You immediately do what you can to help that person or group. During Covid-19, Mutual aid groups popped up all over the world, over 4900 different Mutual Aid funds opened up across the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal. With many of them still being up and active to this day.

Mutual Aid funds act as a community money pot, you don't have to meet criteria, you don't have to wait an allotted time, you just ask for help and they give it to you, no questions asked. There aren't any limits to what you can ask for, they keep public records of how much is given and for what reason, but there are no limits to how many times you can ask for help. The only real limit is the funds they have available to them, and they might set a cap on funds for discretionary and financial reasons but there is no big bureaucracy or waiting list to hide behind.

Mutual Aid funds gained popularity in the Trade Union movement, as unions did strikes the wages of the workers themselves were halted pretty much completely. And due to all of us living in a Capitalist world, we still need money to pay bills and debts, and just to eat. So the Unions started kitty funds or "Mutuals" where the union would subsidize the loss of earning through monthly dues to the union and so on.

The core idea is that if you as an individual are comfortable enough and have something to give and won't miss yourself. Then it is the ultimate act of solidarity to provide what you can to someone who is in need. Without hesitation or second thought.

Charity on the other hand

Charities are a very mixed bag and tend to have a lot of bureaucratic processes built into them. Which even thinking Liberally tends to turn a few heads. It makes some kind of sense that if a charity is offering Financial Assistance through grants, and peer-to-peer donations then you might want to double-check that the person is in dire need. But that doesn't seem to be the case, they don't just have those long-drawn processes for Financial help, they can even have it for intimate advice, or therapy. Two things that wouldn't immediately strike you as being something, one would take advantage of for pointless monetary gain.

Charities also have a track record of hemorrhaging money into "administrative" costs and the average NGO and charity have an average Transfer rate (Donations-Admin Cost) of around 30 cents to each dollar donated going to where they say it will. Resulting in any Financial Assistance usually being worse than anything you'll get from a Government or just asking around for spare change.

This isn't just Charities that do local work, those actually have lower admin fees and thus a higher transfer rate on average, but again because they're local they don't have the same traction as Oxfam, The Salvation Army, etc. So they naturally won't have as much money to give out because they don't get much cash flow into themselves.

Oxfam and UNICEF on the other hand are some of the worst for it, because the further afield the money gets away from you, the donor. The less actually ends up in the pockets of those who need it. Some go as far to tell their volunteers not to carry physical cash on them when visiting countries in the Global South (previously known as "Third world" countries).

Government Welfare or "Welfare"

Government welfare in countries with strong Socially Democratic or Left-Leaning Governments does tend to be highly efficient at curbing Unemployment, Homelessness, etc. With a couple of exceptions like Singapore for example. But the issue with welfare is one that Brits are all too familiar with. The Welfare system is only as good as the government managing it, and the second that a Centrist or Conservative Government comes in. The more useless Welfare becomes, my situation is a pretty good example of it.

I need y'alls help

As I mentioned before, Welfare in the United Kingdom is pretty dastardly given than the most I get as a Disabled, 25-year-old Student is £250 (US$329) Per Month. Back in 2019, I was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder, which I made a post about on here, in fact, it was one of the first things I posted about when it joined Vocal.

FND is in the same family of conditions as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. The symptoms often overlap a lot but the diagnostics are a bit different. When I was diagnosed all I really had was a deep ache all across my body for no clear reason, sometimes it was a 4 out of 10 bad and others 9.5 out of 10.

Nearly this time last year, I was a committed Support Worker to Autistic Adults, that was my favorite job and it gave me a look into a Career that I would have liked to pursue further if my Health hadn't gotten worse. In October of last year, I had to give that job up, rather suddenly and I didn't have much in the way of savings or assistance from my family. Not because my family didn't want to help, but rather, they financially couldn't help.

My father was Disabled and he passed away because of a Brain Tumour around 8 years ago. Much of my family are dead, no grandfathers, no cousins that we're in contact with, no grandmothers. Mum was basically an only child so the only familial relationships I have are literally the people I live with. They can't really help me.

My mum is a carer at work and my sister works in retail, My sister is preoccupied with clearing her own debts and my mum has a couple of debt issues herself but we manage to squeeze by on what we can. Albeit, it usually results in cuts to the quality of food and such. Or having to sacrifice some things just to squeeze by. I've pretty much lost 30kg in the past 6 months due to not eating as much, again due to lack of money.

My Neurological health is getting worse, nowadays I can't really walk or stand unassisted. I had to fork out 10 bucks for my own walking stick because my doctor was being sketchy as hell around getting me walking aides. I'm not entirely sure why,

I have an interview for a Paid internship at the University for a big project that's going to be running for at least the next year. I'm hoping that that will be my foot in the door for getting a job in academia, Especially socioeconomics. With a specialty in Local Business relations with Unions and Local Government.

I've set up a GoFundMe here with the goal of hitting £2200 so that I can help contribute to bills and also maybe have the savings for a wheelchair if I ever need it, which given the rate that I'm currently deteriorating, that might be an inevitability.

I would appreciate anything you can give, even just 10 bucks. As always you can do it through tipping on here, the gofundme or Cashapp