Aid organizations & Community Kitchens operating in Sudan
SudanFunds - website compiling verified campaigns and organizations
Khartoum Aid Kitchen - they operate 12 kitchens across sudan, including 2 hospitals
Saving Al-Geneina / Hope and Haven for Refugees - provides food, medical care, and education to refugees in sudan
Sudanese American Physicians Association's medical aid program - they operate a hospital in khartoum, **the ONLY hospital still delivering babies in sudan**
One Million Sustainable Pads Campaign - distributes reusable pads
FAH Supporting Sudan - financial assistance to sudanese hospitals, backed by the FAH / federation of american hospitals
Community kitchen in Cairo - provides food to refugees who have fled to egypt
Community kitchen in Sudan - provides food for 1200 families
Another community kitchen in Sudan - provides food, only £1,500 raised so far
Sanad Initiative - raises money to keep sudanese medical students in school
Sudan Solidarity Initiative - run by sudanese diaspora, provides direct funds to all kinds of sudanese including farmers unions and low cost clinics, also runs awareness-raising workshops
and, finally, this isnt a community organization, but @lgbtq-refugees is a large group of LGBTQ refugees who have reached out to me personally. they have been kicked out of multiple IDP camps because of their queer identity. i can personally attest they are real refugees who really need help. you can donate to them here
Report from Northern Colorado Community Mutual Aid and Defense on suggestions for ways to build community and support around mutual aid programs.
An important part of building sustainable mutual aid projects, especially those survival programs that seek to redistribute expensive gear that cannot be easily appropriated, is a consistent effort to reach out to new people who may have excess supplies and are willing to give them but have not given them away yet.
In light of this, members of our mutual aid committee and close comrades developed what we believe to be a novel system of soliciting materials for mutual aid drives that delivers large quantities of survival goods on a short time frame with minimal cost and time commitment. This method, based on a project many Scout troops engage in, resulted in the collection and redistribution of hundreds of pounds of food, clothing, toiletries, and survival gear for unhoused people in our communities, and can be replicated by any mutual aid group.
The project itself can have its work divided into three types and we found each to take roughly the same amount of time, with the final steps taking the longest. The timetable for the project was a few days longer than a week, including the wrangling of friends to participate in distribution and securing a place to store the goods after we learned how much was donated.
First, we collected brown grocery bags from a local “woke” store. Calling ahead and explaining the project yielded a few hundred bags we were able to pick up within an hour. To these bags, we attached a single sheet of paper explaining the project, our organization, and the purpose of mutual aid, with our contact info bookending.
After determining the neighborhoods we deemed most likely to have and share survival gear, teams of two or three spread through a local city. Leaving the bags, with their attached notes, on door handles and in door-jams, teams were able to cover between 50 and 100 houses per hour. Most of this work was done in one go the Saturday before collection, though a significant amount was done on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week.
Copy of our outreach flyer.
On the day of collection, groups of two and three drove around the neighborhoods where bags were left and collected the donated items. This step took many trips, as the goods collected surprised us in terms of quantity and we had to frequently unload our full cars to fit more supplies. We took what was gathered, sorted them into food (canned and otherwise), clothing, survival gear, and toiletries, then stored them.
In total, about twenty hours of work – with many opportunities to streamline the process – yielded monumental results. We intend to repeat the process in the communities we serve and are keeping a map of whatever neighborhood we visit so as to not repeatedly hit any one place.
Some tips and ideas for improvement:
Leave thank you notes when picking up bags. This will give you a clear number of places that donated and will build good will with your neighbors. Remind them why their help matters, they may choose to become more involved in mutual aid because of your labor.
Experiment in the sorts of neighborhoods you leave bags in. We found success in neighborhoods with mid priced rentals and cheaper homes, as well as in older neighborhoods. We did not find as much success in student neighborhoods. These are local conditions, though, and hitting a variety of communities can give you a better idea of where your labor is best spent.
There are plenty of easy ways to compartmentalize tasks in this, which may be useful in guaranteeing safety of participants while also bringing newer/less known people in. Distribution of bags comes to mind first.
Turn around time should be quick, but not too fast. Anecdotally, it seems like neighborhoods we hit on Tuesday and Wednesday donated at higher rates, but not enough data was collected to test this. Collecting goods any more than a week after leaving bags seems like it would lead to worse results, as may collection within a day or two of distribution.
Incorporating local events or referencing the season may be a good way to increase donations. A supply drive around Christmas may be more bountiful than one in mid-January, for example. In cities where anti-homeless persecution is well known, this information can be used to drive home the need for those extra goods a household may have.
Be aware of the weather. We distributed during a windstorm and this blew away a number of bags, decreasing donations in that neighborhood.
A project like this is easily to replicate and has shown results. With some small changes, it can provide a covid-safe, easily expandable and labor saving method to mass gear collection. Let us know how things go, if you try this method: [email protected].
[ID: A photograph inspired by Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl With a Pearl Earring. The model is a young dark-skinned Black woman wearing a black headwrap and a black shirt, posing before a dark background. She's depicted in the same pose as the subject in Vermeer's painting: photographed from the chest up, shown in profile but looking over her shoulder at the viewer, her lips slightly parted. The light is centered on the woman's face, in particular the area around her eyes, while the rest of the photograph is cast in shadow. This draws the viewer's gaze to meet the woman's eyes. A large pearl dangling from the woman's earlobe also catches the light. End ID]
This is my friend, Jas! She is beloved on the island I have called home for years now, as a compassionate, outspoken, kind, and indomitable member of our community. Tonight her ship carrying humanitiarian aid to Gaza was intercepted, and she and her crew have been detained by the IOF. Watching this, listening to these words in her voice, does not feel real.
If you are in the U.S. please contact your representatives now and demand the safe release of Jasmine Sau Mun Ikeda, the release of her crew and all humanitarian aid workers, the release of aid to the people of Gaza, and a ceasefire NOW!
Closed captions added by me. Video Transcript is under the cut:
Hi, my name is Jasmine Ikeda, and I'm born
and raised in the illegally occupied nation of Hawaii, holding a US passport.
If you're watching this video, I have been kidnapped against my will by the IOF for attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
Please demand of the US government to stop the genocide to stop supplying Israel with funds and weapons of mass destruction, and please demand the release and safety of me and my comrades.
Thank you.
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