The Response

For our final episode of The Response this year, we interviewed three mutual aid organizers from Orlando, FL, Hartford, CT, and Bvlbancha (aka New Orleans, LA).

• Gabbie Barnes is the founder of FREE HART Closet, a worker-owner at the People's Saturday School, a mutual aid organizer, and a Library of Things Fellow.
• Rachel Kinbar is an organizer with Central Florida Mutual Aid, Orlando DSA, the operations director for Beautiful Trouble, and is a participant in both the Emergency Battery Network Co-Lab and a Library of Things Fellow.
• Ida Aronson is an active member of the United Houma Nation and organizes with Bvlbancha Collective, Imagine Water Works, and Bvlbancha Radio among other mutual aid projects, and was a participant in the Emergency Battery Network Co-Lab.

While they each are working on several unique projects, they are connected by their dedication to their communities and their participation in our SolidarityWorks program.

Together, we discuss the current threats to their communities, both political and environmental, the ways they are collaborating with others to develop community-led solutions, and how they find joy in their life and work despite the many challenges they face.

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Check out the resources below to learn more about all of their projects:

• SolidarityWorks
• Emergency Battery Network Toolkit
• Mutual Aid Hartford (MAH)
• FREE HART Closet
• The People's Saturday School
• Central Florida Mutual Aid
• Beautiful Trouble
• Bvlbancha Collective
• Bvlbancha Radio
• Imagine Water Works
• How To Set Up An Open Mesh Network in Your Neighborhood
• Meet Freifunk, the German group that aims to provide free internet to all
• "The Food Conspiracy Cookbook"
• Urban Recipe (Food Distribution Co-op)

Episode credits:

• Hosted and produced by Tom Llewellyn
• Edited by Robert Raymond
• Theme Music by Cultivate Beats

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Response is an award-winning podcast series produced by Shareable exploring how communities respond to disaster — from hurricanes to wildfires to reactionary politics and more.

For the past decade, communities across the state have faced severe challenges on multiple fronts - from extreme fires and flooding to earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic.

But how have they responded and what community resilience strategies have proved most successful?

In this episode of The Response, we explore some of the answers to these questions with two guest speakers

Lisa Beyer is an Urban Water Infrastructure Manage at World Resources Institute. As part of that role, she is responsible for developing and scaling financially innovative, environmentally sustainable municipal water management solutions in cities across the country.

And Greg Kochanowski is a licensed architect, an aspiring landscape architect, and educator in the State of California. His new book, The Wild, explores the urban periphery of Los Angeles, where the city meets the mountains, a landscape inherently vulnerable to wildfire, and its secondary and tertiary effects, including flash floods and debris flows.

Episode credits:

• Host and executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Series producer: Robert Raymond
• Theme Music: “Meet you on the other side” by Cultivate Beats

*This episode features the audio recording from a webinar that was co-hosted by American Institute of Architects San Francisco (AIASF) and Center for Architecture and Design. As a result, here are several references to images that were shared by our presenters. The video recording of this talk can be accessed by becoming a member of AIASF.

After taking a long Summer break, The Response is back for a fourth season, well kinda. We’re officially kicking things off at the end of the month with an audio documentary focused on European Heatwaves and how their impact is exacerbated by energy poverty.

But for the next two weeks, we’ll be returning our focus to Puerto Rico.

Monday, September 20th marks the four-year anniversary of when Hurricane Maria slammed into the island causing thousands of deaths, and knocking out power for almost an entire year, leading to what many consider to be the worst disaster in US History.

In this episode, we talk to environmental sociologist Marla Perez Lugo. We discuss her experience during Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s power supply and energy grid before and after the storm and the multitude of issues caused by precarious resilience.

Episode credits:

• Host and executive producer: Tom Llewellyn
• Series producer: Robert Raymond
• Theme Music: “Meet you on the other side” by Cultivate Beats

On this week’s show, we’ll be turning our focus towards the Solidarity Economy and what is meant by 'Resist & Build'.

Joining us for this conversation is Emily Kawano, Co-Director of the Wellspring Cooperative Corporation and Coordinator of the United States Solidarity Economy Network, Matthew Slaats, co-director of the Solidarity Research Center and the founder of the Virginia Solidarity Economy Network, and Edget Betru, an attorney who is on the boards of Community Movement Builders and the Organization for Human Rights and Democracy in Atlanta.

Together, we unpack what 'Resist & Build' looks like in practice, discuss the necessity of cross-movement dialogue and collaboration, and explore pathways for scaling up (and arguably, more importantly, scaling out) the solidarity economy.

Resources:

• Resist & Build
• US Solidarity Economy Network
• Virginia Solidarity Economy Network
• Community Movement Builders
• Organization for Human Rights and Democracy
• People’s Network for Land and Liberation
• Wellspring Cooperative Corporation
• Solidarity Research Center
• Stop Cop City Solidarity
• The Response: Stop Cop City with Jesse Pratt López & Nolan Huber-Rhoades

Episode credits:

Produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn

Edited by Robert Raymond.

Theme Music by Cultivate Beats

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

The Response is published by Shareable.

After a statement about the war in Palestine, we’re in conversation with Stephanie Rearick, a founder, and Director of the Madison Mutual Aid Network Cooperative and Humans United in Mutual Aid Networks, or HUMANS for short, which is a new type of networked cooperative ‘creating means for everyone to discover and succeed in work they want to do, with the support of their community’.

Stephanie talks about how mutual aid has changed since the pandemic began, how to create networks of Care that can actually support members of our communities long term, the new tech stack that they’re creating to support mutual aid work to scale, and what it means to live a POSHtarity Lifestyle.

Resources:

• Mutual Aid Network
• Humans at Home
• Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza
• Jewish Voice for Peace Call for Ceasefire in Gaza
• Mutual Aid and the Movement to Stop Cop City

Episode credits:

Presented, hosted, and co-produced by Tom Llewellyn

Edited by Robert Raymond

Theme Music by Cultivate Beats

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

The Response is published by Shareable.