Points of Unity for Triangle Mutual Aid
This is a living document created by and intended for use by the Triangle Mutual Aid collective in central North Carolina. It is not intended to be all inclusive or definitive of all of the work that TMA does, but rather a point of reference and understanding of the mission and values behind this community and its efforts. While Triangle Mutual Aid (TMA) refers to a specific community of people, the concept and practice of embodying mutual aid is not one that we claim credit or ownership over. Other collectives and communities are encouraged to take this working document as a jumping off place and build upon it for their own organizing efforts.
We live and move in hope of building a better world, one of interdependence, community, and care that actively works to disrupt the systems of oppression and capitalism that denies people the existence they deserve. More and more, particularly in the face of repression and climate disaster, we see people moved to take care of each other: to offer each other mutual aid.
TMA often spearheads the response in our locale in these moments followed by a massive influx of community engagement and response. Our hope is that this document helps people align with TMA's mission and values, or discern for themselves a feeling of enablement and autonomy to self organize outside of TMA within our shared locale.
1. Housing, Food, and Care Are Non-Negotiable
We believe survival needs—shelter, nourishment, clean drinking water, healthcare, and connection—are not privileges to be earned, but rights to be honored. We reject systems that tie basic human needs to employment, citizenship, paperwork, sobriety, compliance, or worthiness narratives.
2. Solidarity Over Charity
We act with, not for. Our work is mutual and reciprocal, not transactional. We don't serve, we share. We trust that everyone has something to give and something they need. Our organizing rejects saviorism and centers dignity, autonomy, and collective liberation.
3. No One is Disposable
We organize from a deep belief that all people are worthy of care, regardless of background, past harm, ability, documentation status, mental health, or housing situation, and /or other factors. We meet people where they are, not where the system says they should be.
4. Disasters Don't Break the System, They Reveal It
We aim to build a new world in community care as we struggle to exist in our current conditions. We respond to both emergent and ongoing symptoms of capitalism: climate disaster, housing insecurity, pandemics, displacement, and beyond. These system failures are not accidents — they are features built to exploit. We are not working to repair that system, but to disrupt and dismantle it. We respond guided by care, community knowledge, relationships, and resistance — and we fight for a future where mutual care is not an exception, but the normalized culture.
5. Decentralization is a Strength
We trust horizontal, consent-based structures. Leadership is shared, emergent, and accountable. We build trust through transparency, aligned values, and action, not titles. Our strength is in networks and collaboration, not bosses.
6. Our Safety is Interconnected
Our safety is something we build together and is oriented around relationship. It doesn’t come from control, but from care. Our safety is intertwined with yours. We cultivate a culture of developed trust, respect, generosity, and reciprocity. We do not call out, we call in. Assuming positive intent, having open communication, acknowledging and honoring boundaries, and supporting each other through conflicts are only some of the many ways we move in this collective to help each other and the people we collaborate with feel safe and supported while doing the work.
7. We Keep Us Safe -- Without the Police
We reject the carceral state and the violence of policing. Our safety does not come from the state, but from each other. If we aim to dismantle systems of oppression we must first find alternatives to be less reliant on them. Calling the cops often puts our most vulnerable neighbors— especially people of color, immigrants, unhoused people, and those targeted by state violence— in greater danger. We commit to building and practicing community-based responses to harm, conflict, and crisis that do not rely on state intervention. Whether through de-escalation, mutual aid safety teams, or other collective strategies, we take responsibility for keeping each other safe and resolving conflict in ways that align with our values of care, accountability, and liberation.
8. Grief, Rage, and Joy Belong Here
Mutual aid is human. It encompasses emotional labor, spiritual work, and political defiance. Sometimes it’s spreadsheets, meetings, errands, and trash bags. Sometimes it’s crying in the kitchen, going with someone to their court date, or holding someone who has just lost everything. It’s all part of it. Mutual aid creates space for beautiful moments to occur, but responding to difficult situations brings up hard and heavy emotions as well. We make space for the full range of human feeling in our work.
9. Autonomy and Interdependence Grow the Movement
Mutual aid flourishes when people organize where they are, with the people they know, and in ways that make sense for them. We encourage the formation of new collectives that share our values while building their own practices of safety, security, and accountability. Our strength is in an expansive web of relationships: each group rooted in its own community or collective, yet connected in struggle and solidarity. Triangle Mutual Aid is not the holder of all things— we are a container, not an institution. We come together in collaboration and empower people to initiate their own projects, rooted in their own communities, while staying connected in solidarity. Our work begins in the Triangle, but our vision is global: neighbor to neighbor, block to block, and struggle to struggle— a movement both grounded and in motion.
10. Mutual Aid is an Embodied Movement
Our work is rooted in the body. We practice attunement to ourselves, to each other, and to the natural world we are part of. Mutual aid follows the rhythms of living systems: responsive, adaptive, interdependent. We move by resonance rather than control. This is a practice of nervous systems in relationship, building capacity to meet what comes—together.