Sistering: Mutual Aid in a Collective of Women
I live in Kirkwood, a beautiful and deeply connected neighborhood community on the east side of Atlanta. While living in Kirkwood comes with a variety of incredible benefits, one of the biggest perks is our active Buy Nothing group.
The concept of a Buy Nothing group is simple: folks share items they no longer need or want, and other folks can pick up those items at no cost. Everyone can contribute, and everyone can benefit. I’ve gotten silverware, books, and even furniture through my Buy Nothing group.
What is mutual aid?
Buy Nothing groups are one of the most accessible forms of mutual aid: a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and service rooted in community cooperation and solidarity. Individuals or groups come together to support each other collectively: everyone is included, and everyone is expected to both contribute and benefit.
“Do you already know that your existence—who and how you are—is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well? Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and place you live with and in?”
Mutual aid exists counter to traditional charity models. In a traditional charity model, a well-resourced person provides a portion of her resources to a less-resourced person, with no perceived benefit to herself. She walks away with the knowledge that she has helped someone less fortunate than herself. She is confident she has done The Right Thing™.
The problem is that this model creates an othering effect. One person is The Savior, and the other person is The Victim. Charity models don’t lessen that perceived divide – they enhance it. The Savior in a charity model can also provide charity to The Victim without personally engaging with The Victim at all. Without relationship, impact work becomes transactional and apathetic.
Sistering: Community Building as Mutual Aid
Enter the concept of Sistering: mutual aid within a community of like-minded women.
I believe deeply in the power of community and intentionally built my consulting practice to reflect this belief; we truly are stronger together. SageD Consulting is not just me, but a powerful Collective of subject matter experts, support staff, and trusted advisors. It is an intentional weaving together not just of the people I am in deep community with, but also the shared values of SageD.
Our Collective is about each of us contributing our individual subject matter expertise within a value-aligned framework. It’s about creating a shared vision that aligns with each of our personal and professional goals. It’s about knowing that we are all invested not just in the work, and not just in each other, but also in ourselves.
Introducing: The Sistering Series
That’s why we launched the Sistering event series: to invite you all to experience a new way of being and doing with one another. Together, we hear from Black women subject matter experts, break bread together, and engage in playful fellowship. Our goal is to build the practices and resources needed to be in community with one another.
This March, our theme is Activism, grounded in the philosophy of adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy.
“Inspired by Octavia Butler’s explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.”
We’ll be building together on the skills and ideas we’ve already learned: conflict resolution from Siha Collins of Yellow Mat Wellness, and Black Love from Adwoa Ulzen Setrakian and Masud Olufani. This month, we’ll be joined by Cicely Garrett of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance to speak about incorporating the practice of activism into our daily lives.
Interested in attending? You can purchase your tickets here. We invite you to consider purchasing a ticket for a friend you would like to invite into closer community with you.
We are so grateful to continue to Sister with you all this year.
