We have witnessed a wave of mutual aid in our country. Networked assistance arrives more quickly than formal aid from various institutions.

Portugal has been hit by successive and persistent storms, which have placed it at the center of concerns in all areas of society. Some regions of the country, battered by their effects, have frustrated the best expectations in a year that has “just begun.”

Faced with challenging situations of extreme emotional violence, uncertainty, and threats to hope, people come together around an action as old as humanity itself—mutual aid. The word mutual comes from the Latin “mutuum,” which means the relationship with different forms of “mutual aid” (those who help and those who are helped). As a full exercise of citizenship, the help that is shared freely coexists with the concepts of collaboration and cooperativism. People are confronted with a sense of exceptional usefulness when helping others.

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