Solidarity, Not Charity: Mutual Aid and Community Resilience in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the well documented health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minorities, particularly those living in underserved urban settings. Due to historic and contemporary structural racism, these areas are often food deserts, lack adequate access to primary care services, and have higher rates of maternal and infant mortality. The lack of public health infrastructure to respond to emergencies, such as pandemics, can be rapidly met with collective action from communities to take care of their most vulnerable. After providing a basic overview of how structural racism has created the present-day disparities seen in communities such as North Philadelphia, this thesis investigates and makes the case for the capacity of these resilient communities to take care of themselves. To this end, I describe the work of North10 Philadelphia, Fabric Masks for North Philly, and the Maternal Wellness Village—community-based organizations that rapidly pivoted their work to fill the unmet needs of people in North Philadelphia related to food insecurity, personal protective equipment, and childbirth preparation and social support, respectively. I describe the utilization of the services provided by these groups and evaluate the evolution of their work from the onset of the pandemic through present day. Following each case study, I share the stories of the leaders behind each project to give voice to the people fighting for the health and wellbeing of their community. Lastly, I reflect on my positionality as a Black woman and medical student at a large academic institution partnering with these groups and assert the need to maintain partnerships with these and similar organizations to ensure the sustainability of their programming in the long term.