Community responses to the coronavirus pandemic: how mutual aid can help

Benton, Ellie and Power, Anne Elizabeth (2021) Community responses to the coronavirus pandemic: how mutual aid can help. CASEreports (CASEreport 134). Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London, UK.

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Abstract

The beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic caused panic over job losses, food and toiletry shortages and social isolation, over and above the health impacts of the virus. People wanted to help on a mass scale and there was a huge community response. The pandemic brought energy into neighbourhoods and communities, leading to the rapid formation of mutual aid groups in many different forms all over the country. At the same time, existing community groups and many service enterprises, particularly food outlets, redirected their activities to helping the NHS, families that were struggling, and vulnerable people. Since March 2020, LSE Housing have been researching a sample of these mutual aid groups. In this paper, we will present our findings on the makeup of volunteer groups, the contributions of volunteers, the people they helped, and how, also what potential longer-term benefits there may be. We explore the social problems that the groups address and show how we need more than mutual aid to remedy the deep-set inequalities that the pandemic has highlighted. The need for community and a sense of belonging is a message that comes out most strongly from our research, reinforced by financial need and social isolation. Mutual aid can bind communities and neighbourhoods together and create a sense of belonging to a degree.

Item Type:	Monograph (Report)
Official URL:	https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/CASE/_new/publications/
Additional Information:	© 2021 CASE & LSE
Divisions:	Social Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
JEL classification:	I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I0 - General > I00 - General
Date Deposited:	16 Feb 2024 16:09
Last Modified:	14 Sep 2024 05:02
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121521

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