MUTUAL AID - AN ANSWER TO OUR PROBLEMS.

          Mutual aid is the basis of any decent society, it takes us away from the capitalist consumer juggernaut, and breaks our dependency on the profit system that bleeds us and keeps us in perpetual struggle for survival. There is no avenue of our lives that we could not enrich by mutual aid. It can be introduced in education, home maintenance, making and repairing things for the community, growing our own food, book sharing schemes, toy swap schemes for the kids, the list is endless. As our involvement grows the list grows and we become more empowered and less dependent on selling ourselves to the highest bidder in an effort to support our families. The dire situation in Greece has forced the Greek people to look for alternatives to try to hold on to their dignity and try to enhance their lives, one of the latest schemes to develop is #tutorpool, a mutual aid scheme of education. The Greek education system, because of "austerity" cuts, has been decimated and is practically defunct, this scheme shows the way we can organise our society outside the state and corporate strangle hold. An extract from Occupied London.

SOLIDARITY.

      #tutorpool is an education solidarity network created by ordinary citizens living in an unordinary country in very unordinary times. Summer protests at Syntagma Square and other squares throughout the country fostered more than a profound sense of community and solidarity among citizens in Greece; friendships forged in the “square” gave way to solidarity initiatives.
#tutorpool began spontaneously in twitter after a discussion between few people and took less than a few hours to spread. That explains the use of the hash tag (#) before the name, to remind everyone that internet offers people the tools to meet, organize and work together. In less than a week, #tutorpool begun to take the form of a volunteer network, offering educational support to students whose families could not afford “coaching”. A group of volunteers managed to pull each of their skills together under the www.tutorpool.gr website and begun offering online and actual courses to students all over Greece, reaching as far as the isolated islands. At this point, less than two months later than the very first tweet, #tutorpool has more than 300 volunteer teachers, 102 students, and 205 courses offered throughout the country.
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