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BRIGHTON AND HOVE MUTUAL AID OPEN MEETINGS 1 & 2, (27/05 & 10/06) …

- - - - Many volunteers with diverse skills and capacities
      - Builds on existing face-to-face / local relationships and creates new ones
      - Quick, flexible and responsive to immediate needs – non-bureaucratic
      - Independent from formal organisations such as the Council and charities
      - Has harnessed people’s energy and built on their inner willingness to help others – which existed pre-covid
      - Collaborative, participatory, open-minded and shared values of inclusivity, works on trust
      - Already has some level of accountability as bottom-up – especially in street level groups
      - Allows contact with a real person, not a recorded message
      - Determination, energy and passion from many members
      - Examples of mutuality – people receive and give help
      - Freedom in how we organise, learn from each other, but can innovate and are not obliged to do things the same way.
      - Needs little funding
    - - Lack of clear / agreed vision on what is mutual aid.
      - Lack of funding / financial means
      - Currently lacks mechanisms to handle diverse views and visions, complex issues and ensure fairness
      - Lack of clear structure, accountability, agreed decision-making processes,
      - Signposting and linking to other services – is everyone clear on where to send people?
      - Not yet harnessing contributions of all volunteers, worried people will drop off – clarity on help needed, where to sign up…
      - Some replication of other services?
      - Concerns that everyone has not been reached – no leaflet, mistrust the leaflet; some streets with no support
      - High dependence on digital access (e.g. website, whatsapp groups) and people’s free time – results in an affluence bias
      - Safeguarding of volunteers. Physical safety when doing to someone’s house
      - Safeguarding of those needing help
      - Reliant on unpaid labour - Danger of people ‘burning out’ and gaps emerging
      - Lack of security of Whatsapp groups / GDPR compliance of contact details
  - - - Covid pandemic has created renewed energy around volunteering and community involvement locally, nationally.
      - Also a new network and set of connections between people has been built.
      - Already well organised – could draft a joint strategy going forwards
      - Opportunity to reshape city service provision – more flexible approach and culture of support from bottom up
      - Could create partnerships with / seek to complement / signpost people to different services and voluntary sector organisations that already have trudt of communities... ?
      - Could recruit student interns?
      - Could apply for HEIF funding to do some research (Univ of Sussex £25k) e.g. Look at the reasons why people need this help and seek longer term solutions
      - Could organise street parties / events with fundraising
    - - Part of creating the “Big society” – volunteers substituting for the state
      - How to sustain momentum
      - Decline in volunteer numbers and time - as people go back to work and Covid crisis reduces?
      - Lack of financial means – how to produce stuff without funding, but worry that managing money adds bureaucracy and moves from Mutual aid potentially
      - How to document our learnings during a time of crisis and trauma - we must capture our narrative!!
      - WhatsApp can be misused by people
      - Are we in breach of laws e.g. safeguarding, GDPR, data management?
      - Taken over by an ‘establishment’; loses grassroots movement
      - Potential lack of trust in volunteers / risk of few spoilers spoiling things
      - Worry about losing ‘mutualness’ – some using language of referral, volunteer, helper