Welcome to Dispatch #49! This week we want to highlight an inspiring story coming out of Sudan - the site of one of the worst humanitarian disasters ongoing right now. The Sudanese Civil War has displaced millions and collapsed the government, but in the destruction local communities are proving the power of mutual aid at scale as they work to fill in the gaps. It’s a really inspiring story of human resilience by Waging Nonviolence, and a great example of mutual aid as practical infrastructure rather than theory.
In addition, we’re highlighting the awesome work of Mary Mattingly who is an artist/architect using their skills to show us what society could look like if we had a more restorative relationship with nature, and plenty of other great pieces of content we think are worth your time.
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Easy Actions to Take
Why: The worsening situation of femicide in Cameroon is becoming alarming. From January to 9 September 2026, more than 60 women have been killed, according to the publicly reported count. Cameroonian civil society considers that the government is failing to fully grasp the scale of these tragedies, which seriously undermine women's security and peace, prompting calls for action, particularly directed at the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and the Family and the Prime Minister. Organized by World Beyond War
⏱~3min | Tell four news outlets to correct what they printed about the UK Greens' “Zionism is racism” vote
Why: The Green Party in the UK recently voted to declare that Zionism is a racist ideology. This sent ripples throughout the press, with many liberal and right-wing news outlets reporting on the event in a misleading way. This type of reporting misrepresents what has happened for thousands of unsuspecting readers who often never read past headlines. Applying pressure through public complaints has led to updates and retractions in the past! Organized by Newscord
⏱~3min | (US Only) Pass the Sanders-AOC Ban Flock Act to counter Trump's mass surveillance!
Why: Flock, Axon, and other ALPR companies have wormed their way into communities across the nation. The Ban Flock Act would crush this invasive spying network. The bill bans federal use of ALPRs, imposes serious consequences on localities that use these cameras, and prohibits use of the data ALPR cameras collect. Organized by Demand Progress, et al
Little (Movement) Wins
Flashback:
How to Respond to the Most Common Zionist Talking Points by Ray
In our last Deep Dive, we want to help you push back on some of the most common talking points you'll hear from Zionists - everything from "the right to self defense" to "Palestine never existed." There's about a dozen talking points covered with facts and sources, so that you can be better prepared once you come across one again. This is, of course, a non-exhaustive list. If there’s a talking point you need help responding to that’s not on here, please let us know by leaving a comment or emailing us!
Featured Piece
How the War in Sudan is Teaching Society to Govern Without the State by Eglal Hamid Abdulgadir
Mutual aid is often given as an answer for what is needed to create lasting structures that can replace the government, but we don’t often see it in action at scale. During times of crisis, like a natural disaster or war, communities have always come together to help one another and fill in the gaps that are left when governments collapse. This is a reality that Sudanese are living through right now. The civil war in Sudan, fought between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces, have displaced millions and caused one of the largest ongoing humanitarian disasters. The RSF in particular, with support from Israel and Saudi Arabia, have been guilty of horrific war crimes, mass killings, rape, and starvation that a UN probe has likened to genocide.
As the government has collapsed, local communities have stepped in the fill the gaps. What’s happening in Sudan is a stunning reminder of both the horrors of war and the resilience of local people as they try to navigate, survive, and thrive in the most brutal conditions. For everyone else, it offers a glimpse at what is possible, and the limits, of mutual aid at scale, gives us clues for how we can build our own parallel structures, and why we must invest in mutual aid now before disaster strikes.
After reading, check out these mutual aid building resources from our directory for ways to start in your own corner of the world!
Content Worth Consuming
- The Oligarchs Are Organized. The Working Class Isn’t. | Maurice Mitchell on Building Power by Better Future
- Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party, discusses technofascism, the failure of the two-party system, and how to build power through “fusion voting.”
- A popular movement in Kashmir defies severe repression by Saba Chaudhry
- Through crackdowns and killings by Pakistan, a three-year-old movement that began over flour prices has stood strong — and just organized a general strike.
- How to combat fear at the polls this November by Eileen Flanagan
- As we approach a midterm election shadowed by threats of violence, there are freely available trainings for people who want to protect the vote.
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Conscious Creatives: Mary Mattingly
Project Titles: Arctic Food Forest Sculpture, Ecotopian Library, Floating Garden, Flock House, Waterpod, WetLand
Mary Mattingly is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist and environmental activist exploring the themes of environmental justice, resource distribution, and urban resilience. Through sculptures, photographs, and participatory ecosystems, she offers hope, solutions for collective sustainable living, and an answer to a simple question: What would life look like if we have a restorative relationship with nature?
She grew up in an agricultural town near Springfield, Massachusetts, where the local drinking water had been contaminated by agricultural chemicals — an experience that shaped her understanding of clean water as both increasingly rare and a fundamental right, and one that has driven her practice ever since. Rather than issuing warnings from a gallery wall, Mattingly often builds things: floating barges, edible forests, self-sustaining habitats — absurd, beautiful, working prototypes for how communities can adapt, survive, and even flourish in a climate-changed world because she believes artists have the power to co-create the cultures they want to see and be a part of.
Some of Mary’s Most Notable Projects:
- Waterpod - A floating habitat built on a repurposed barge, constructed entirely from New York City's waste stream. Designed as a model for future urban living in an era of rising sea levels and climate migration, it traveled to public docks across all five NYC boroughs over five months, functioning as a living sculpture, artist residency, and civic gathering space. The project demonstrated collective care in action, with residents and visitors growing food, generating power, collecting water, and improvising solutions together. It helped spark city-wide conversations about water access, climate-resilient design, and alternative urban infrastructure, and directly influenced Mary’s subsequent projects Swale, WetLand, and Floating Garden.
- Swale - A floating food forest on a repurposed barge that docked at public piers across New York City, inviting anyone to harvest edible plants for free. Because foraging on NYC's public land is illegal, Mary used marine common law to sidestep the restriction entirely — and the project drew over 340,000 visitors, seeded community partnerships across the South Bronx (one of the largest food deserts in the country), and directly led to the establishment of the city's first on-land edible public space, the Bronx River Foodway, where foraging is now legally permitted.
- Arctic Food Forest - A living sculptural ecosystem installed at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, addressing one of the most underreported climate crises in the US: food insecurity in the Arctic, where food costs nearly 4x more than in the continental US. Using reused industrial totes, locally sourced Alaskan soil, and cold-hardy edible perennials selected from fossil records of earlier warming eras, the project also became a research tool and civic proposal that imagined what a more self-sustaining food system could look like in the warming decades ahead. It helped inspire Anchorage's commitment to planting edible perennials in public parks and served as a pilot model for urban food forests in northern climate zones.
Her work lives in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the New York Public Library, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and more and has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Artforum. Through her life and work, Mary Mattingly shows us that creativity's most powerful effect is inspiring imagination, and that artists who dare to imagine more livable futures can make them real.
🖥 Learn More About Mary Mattingly | 📱 Follow Mary on Instagram
Resources & Tools
Here are some great resources from our directory. Please share these links with anyone that might find them helpful:
- 📓 Election Defense Scenarios Guide by Freedom Trainers | A very comprehensive guide written by Daniel Hunter with messaging guidance by ASO Communications for Freedom Trainers outlining 18 different ways American elections could be tampered with, and how to resist.
- 📓 How to Guard Yourself Against Misinformation Online | A guide created by RumorGuard from the News Literacy Project to teach how to spot and resist misinformation online with helpful tools, practice games, and infographics.
- 💝 HourWorld: Global Timebank Network | A platform for neighbors around the world to trade free services with each other. Provide an hour of service to your neighbor and earn one time dollar (1 hour) of service "credits" to use when you need help with a task. Find and join a time bank near you, share your offers and requests to help you and your community, provide services to members, and spend your time credits!
- 💝 RIPESS | Find a solidarity network near you with the help of RIPESS, a solidarity network of networks connecting all continental solidarity economies around the world.
- 💝 Trash Nothing | A global freecycling platform for people (in 18+ countries/territories) looking to give away their unwanted but reusable items to people who can use them, rather than throwing them away. Find your zip code to explore your area, post offers for items you want to give away, or request items you need. You can give and get almost anything on Trash Nothing including food, clothes, furniture, electronics, books, plants, toys and much more.
➡️ Explore More on our Directory!
Know any resources that you think would be a great add to our directory? Share it with us! (We only see so much from our corner of the world)
If you're new here, don't forget to sign up to get full access to our directory and free newsletters sent to your inbox every other Sunday. Till next time, do your best and take it one day at a time. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up. And remember, you're not alone. We always have each other.
With Love & Light,
Elisa & Ray
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