Not only are we still around, we’re also setting up our own non-hierarchical school, organising a free cafe, and collaborating with other grassroots groups
~ The LMA Collective ~
There’s a story of how Lambeth Mutual Aid began, as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic: that immediate desire people had in March 2020 to support their neighbours and make sure that no one was going without food or necessary medicines. And then there’s a story of why Lambeth Mutual Aid still exists, five years on: not collecting prescriptions or delivering emergency bags of food, but digging into the deeper politics of how to survive a society that prioritises wealth over wellbeing.
That story begins in December 2020. Most of the people who were furloughed over the spring and summer are back at work now, and the neighbourhood WhatsApp groups that flourished in the warmer months are quiet. No payments have been made from the emergency fund in weeks, not because people haven’t needed a top-up on their electricity meter or the bread and milk they cannot afford, but for lack of volunteers to organise the distribution. By Christmas 2020 there’s £7000 sitting in the donations account. And a decision to be made about what to do next.
“In any moment in life”, writes social justice facilitator adrienne maree brown, “there is a next elegant step—one that is possible and strategic based on who is taking it and where they are trying to go”. In December 2020 there were five people, no more, making that decision about Lambeth Mutual Aid’s emergency fund. Sure, we could distribute the money to other grassroots groups in Lambeth, close the account and wave goodbye to this experiment in mutual aid. But holding true to our commitment towards mutual aid as a life practice rather than a crisis response, the choice was already made for us.
Money wouldn’t necessarily get us there. In fact, the emergency fund, which we renamed the Solidarity Fund in spring 2022, arguably hinders as much as it enables. It encourages transactional relationships, and a sense of hierarchy: Lambeth Mutual Aid as gatekeepers of the cash. It conveys an image of charitable giving. And it relies for its existence on the wealth gap that we want to destroy. But in December 2020, all we needed to think about was the next elegant step. Stop, or keep going? We decided to keep going.
Fast forward to January 2025. One of the five is in the kitchen at Platform Cafe in Brixton, washing dishes. There are maybe ten people in the kitchen with them, chopping, stirring, cleaning, chatting, laughing. People involved in other grassroots actions – such as anti-raids crews, copwatches, and autonomous winter shelters—cook alongside people who are trying to make a life in the UK, but for now are housed in hotels by the Home Office.
Another of the five is chatting with people at the tables, inviting them to help themselves to a free hot meal, offering suggestions for groups to connect with or places to find support, giving out £5 notes to people who need their travel reimbursed. There’s a table covered with zines and materials for writing to prisoners, another with materials for arts and crafts. Kids are looked after by people from the organising group so that parents can have a little breathing space: one parent sits with adults playing dominoes, enjoying this moment of respite.
Someone new comes in, curious to learn: what is mutual aid? What does it look like, what does it mean?
There are so many possible answers to that question. They might take the form of the writings of Peter Kropotkin, anarchist thought, questions of justice – transformative justice, disability justice, wealth justice —and practices of abolition. But right now, for the many more than five people who have taken the decision to be involved in Lambeth Mutual Aid, it means this monthly cafe.
And what does this cafe mean? It means a space in which all are welcome and met with warmth – physical and emotional – and care. A space in which money doesn’t need to change hands for people to be fed. A space in which people listen, in which strangers are as important as friends, in which no one is judged, no one is turned away. A space that defies the hostility of the Hostile Environment, offering curiosity and solidarity, instead of suspicion. A space that keeps in heart and mind those who are incarcerated. It means a group of people, connected by nothing more than the arbitrary boundaries of a London borough, committing time and energy to creating this space, and maintaining relationships outside of it.
A lot of time and energy still goes into being gatekeepers of cash: the Solidarity Fund remains a big part of what Lambeth Mutual Aid does. But we distribute that money on a no judgement, no questions asked, principle of trust. (Unless that trust is broken by someone trying to play the application system to their own advantage. Sadly, not everyone shares our spirit of solidarity.) For sure, there are many, many people whose connection to Lambeth Mutual Aid ends with asking for and receiving a £30 grant. More meaningful are the requests for a grant that open the door to all the other aspects of mutual aid: whether that’s coming to the cafe, which we call Solidarity Sunday, every month to socialise; cooking; responding to emails; or being part of the group organising grants for others.
There have been a lot of inelegant steps taken by Lambeth Mutual Aid since taking the decision to continue in December 2020. But when we make mistakes we are honest and transparent, in ways that enable more people to get involved in making decisions that are mutually beneficial. As the organising group of Lambeth Mutual Aid has expanded—we’re now 70 people in a WhatsApp group, of whom at least half are active in some way—we are able to take more steps, in more directions. In 2025 we finally have the capacity to make something happen that the group of five could only dream about: a space for thinking about and learning together the skills that might be needed to survive the seemingly inexorable rise of fascism. We’re calling it the School of Solidarity – because those are good words and because they shorten to SOS, which makes us laugh.
We know the School is needed because wealth continues to be prioritised over people’s wellbeing in ever more cruel and callous ways. Just to look at our own borough, in March 2025 we learned that Lambeth Council is putting in place a £99 million budget cut to frontline public services, closing children’s centres and schools, cutting libraries and the safety of young people – all by directors and consultants who don’t live remotely near Lambeth and are paid eye-watering salaries. Mutual aid rejects such violence, resists the narrative of competition, and refuses the imbalance of austerity. Mutual aid asks us to build solidarity and systems of support together.
Maybe, though, you still have a question. How come Lambeth Mutual Aid is still around when so many of the mutual aid groups that flourished in 2020 didn’t make it beyond 2021? Persistence, tenacity and obstinacy have a lot to do with it. So does an embrace of the really boring aspects of organising: admin and more admin. Kindness, too: that principle of no judgement, no questions asked applies to everything. Can’t show up for the cafe or an admin task? We get it: life is tough and full of difficulty, we know you’ll be back when you can, and in the meantime there are others who can keep things moving. All giving time, space, love, and taking what they need, according to capacity.
But maybe there’s one answer that brings all these things together—a comic spin on the old advertising slogan: “A puppy is for life, not for Christmas”. We got involved in mutual aid in 2020 because the pandemic demanded a crisis response. We’ve stayed involved and people keep joining because mutual aid is a practice for life, not just Covid.
Images: LMA on Instagram
