The Response

A groundswell of grassroots action emerged in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, hidden beneath the surface, the community-led response grew rapidly in scope and scale; often forming spontaneously by individuals and groups who recognized the immediate needs of those around them. It's become such a widespread trend that the term "mutual aid" has increasingly become mainstream as local new...

Unhoused populations are struggling to find enough to eat. Farmers are faced with both surplus produce and lower incomes as they are left without places to sell. Individuals have a renewed desire to plant gardens as they grapple with long grocery lines and rising food prices. In short, the pandemic is surfacing many of the systemic issues in the global food system that we've been mostly ignoring f...

The Response , a podcast series from Shareable.net exploring how communities are building collective resilience in the wake of disasters with host Tom Llewellyn. One of the biggest challenges to executing an effective response to the pandemic is data. Without enough accurate data, it's impossible to know exactly how far-reaching and deadly the coronavirus is. There's still so much uncertainty abou...

The Response , a podcast series from Shareable.net exploring how communities are building collective resilience in the wake of disasters with host Tom Llewellyn. In this episode, we'll travel halfway across the world to the Western Balkans, where thousands of asylum seekers are being brutalized as they flee from places like Afghanistan, Syria, and Northern Africa.  The Western Balkans are the entr...

Update: Three years ago this week, an avoidable fire ripped through a London public housing apartment resulting in 72 deaths, most of which were people of color.  Today, we're reposting this episode of The Response from 2019 because it covers a prime example of how structural racism has permeated many aspects of society around the globe.  Racism doesn't stop with a discriminatory (in)justice syste...

This week on The Response podcast , we're bringing you a round table discussion with Lydia Violet Harutoonian from the Music As Medicine Project , Don Hall from Transition US , and Ryan Rising from Permaculture Action Network . While the conversation covered a lot of ground, we focussed on some of the core components of thriving resilient communities, the solidarity economy, and several pathways t...

In this documentary episode of The Response Podcast , we take a deep dive into the work being done by the Chico chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America , or DSA. Their mutual aid work in response to the coronavirus pandemic is just a microcosm of the whole country, from major cities to rural communities, where DSA and other, similar organizations have been stepping in to fill many of the g...

Shareable and FSTV recently co-hosted a panel discussion after the television premiere of the documentary film, "The Response: How Puerto Ricans Are Restoring Power to the People." Panelists Susan Silber , Tré Vasquez , Juan C. Dávila , and Christine Nieves explored a wide range of topics including mutual aid, community resilience, and the impact of colonialism on Puerto Rico's response to COVID-1...

Can we navigate a Just Transition through COVID-19 and the climate crisis?  Today, we'll dig into that question and more with Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan from Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project.  Michelle was a founding co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and recently published an article outlining the 10 reasons why the time for Permanently Organized Communities is now . Learn mor...

While you may not see it, a large and rapidly growing wave of volunteering, mutual aid, and resource sharing is sweeping the globe.  Instead of panicking, many people are defining this moment through their warmth, bravery, diligence, generosity, and creativity.  This is the #PeoplesCOVID19Response! We're in an 'all hands on deck' moment.  There's not a second to lose.  Working together, we can con...

The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EBPREC), facilitates black, indigenous, people of color, and allied communities to cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties. We spoke with Noni Session, the organization's executive director, about what they're doing to achieve systemic solutions to the Bay Area's affordable housing crisis. 

Announcing that our new book, The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters , is available now. Visit theresponsepodcast.org to get a free eBook! This collection of interviews, case studies, guides, and personal stories is designed to deepen the understanding of community led disaster response and support deeper engagement between neighbors, family, and friends In preparati...

In this age of climate disruption and record shattering mega-fires, hurricanes, and the many other disasters wrecking havoc around the world, how do you rebuild from scratch?  Allen Myers grew up in the town of Paradise, CA and like thousands of others, lost his childhood home to the Camp Fire when it burned through 153,336 acres of the Sierra Foothills on November 8th, 2018. Despite its name, Par...

Every element of a city's design, from a neighborhood's street lighting to a sidewalk's drainage to the shape of the skyline, has politics behind it. It's not always clear what those politics are, or who the decision-makers behind them were, but it's there. You just have to look closely and you'll see it. This week we're bringing you an extended interview with author Barbara Brown Wilson, an assis...

The Response revisits a disaster that has its roots in inequality, austerity, and institutional racism. On June 14, 2017, a fire started in a 24-story public housing apartment building in West London called Grenfell Tower. The fire raged all night and reduced the building to a shell. Seventy-two people lost their lives, making the Grenfell Fire the United Kingdom's deadliest disaster since World W...

When discussing climate change these days, it's no longer suitable to simply imagine its impacts on "future generations." It's also not exactly appropriate to imagine the result of climate change as being some kind of apocalyptic, end-of-the-world scenario. Climate change is happening right now, and its impacts are going to absolutely devastate some communities while leaving others relatively inta...

An in depth interview with Paris's Chief Resilience Officer, Sebastian Maire, about what that city has been doing in order to build resilience in the face of the climate crisis. The conversation covers the six main resilience challenges in Paris, their three-tiered approach to meeting those challenges, and how they are empowering the residents to directly participate — and in many cases, lead the...

In the first episode of our second season, The Response travels to Mexico City and puts the focus on the 2017 Puebla Earthquake — a magnitude 7.1 quake that toppled over forty buildings, caused over 350 deaths, and injured thousands. Specifically, we explore the significance of information flows by telling the story of a very unique initiative that arose in the wake of the earthquake. In the after...

Last month, Shareable writer Aaron Fernando spoke at length with Dr. Gordon, about his innovative approach to working with trauma caused by social, political, and environmental disasters.  From the ongoing occupation in Gaza to wildfire survivors in Sonoma County, students and teachers in Parkland after the school shooting, military veterans returning home with PTSD, and the systemic marginalizati...

Going beyond simply analyzing the dynamics of the 2017 Tubbs Fire and Undocufund, the interview explores the broader issues faced by the undocumented community in California, as well as the importance of organizing and community empowerment when it comes to minimizing the effects of not just environmental disasters—but economic, social, and racial injustices as well.

The third episode of The Response travels to Northern California to provide a unique perspective on the topics of climate change and immigration. We put the focus on last year's Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California — the state's most destructive fire to date — and how it impacted the undocumented community. We explore how , in the face of ICE raids, labor violations, a housing crisis, and climate-...

In this second episode of our new radio documentary series The Response , we shine a spotlight on Puerto Rico. When Hurricane Maria slammed into the island about a year ago, it resulted in thousands of deaths and knocked out power for almost an entire year. The result was what many consider to be the worst disaster in the United States. Further, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria exacerbat...

How do we respond to natural disasters? What comes to mind? Large relief organizations like the American Red Cross? Or perhaps the Federal Emergency and Management Agency? Well, those images are certainly part of the story—but they're not the whole story. In our new podcast series, The Response , we aim to share a perspective that isn't extensively covered in the mainstream media. Specifically, we...

The Response from Shareable.net, is a documentary film, book, and podcast series exploring how communities are building collective resilience in the wake of disasters. Climate-fueled disasters are radically transforming the world we live in; with the increasing amount of deaths, displacements, and economic damages acting as a wake-up call for many.  The severe storms, wildfires, inland floods, cro...