Opportunities to Invest in Community Resilience for COVID and Climate

The Barr Foundation is interested in learning how community-led mutual aid and other COVID response efforts were organized, how they operated, and what the network ecology looked like in Boston, Chelsea, and Revere in Massachusetts (USA). The overall goal is to understand how community-focused and community-led responses like these can be built upon and reinforced to support equity-centered climate resilience. What is clear is that multiple strategies are needed to build resilience and what makes for good emergency response varies across space and community. It was obvious to the participants interviewed that racism and other systems of oppression were the primary drivers behind COVID inequities. There was near universal acknowledgement amongst our interviewees that their cities and our state governments were unprepared for COVID and that we are similarly unprepared for climate change emergencies. At the same time, there was also hope that the social connections being built through these COVID response and mutual aid efforts could serve as the basis for developing and strengthening climate resilience. To do this requires sustained investment in grassroots groups and racial justice movement organizations. What is specifically needed is investment in the capacity of the organizations themselves, including people (most importantly), back-of-house infrastructure, and technology. Funding network building would also contribute to building climate resilience at the community level. The strongest or most impactful efforts were those that are coordinated by individuals and organizations who were part of pre-existing networks with other individuals or organizations. Overall, participants shared that building resilience must be people focused, intersectional, institutional, and rooted in anti-racist/ anti-oppressive ideology and practice.This study was funded by the Barr Foundation (Massachusetts, USA