Covid Care was a disaster community formed around the social hub Luna6 in the Naujininkai district of Vilnius. Drawing inspiration from the international outpouring of mutual-aid initiatives during the height of the pandemic, CC strived to communalise care responsibilities and build neighbourhood power by connecting individuals and organizations with mutual-aid practices. Activity included: a clothing drive for the local homeless shelter, weekend lunch delivery/pickup, workplace advise from our friendly union members, and sharing medical knowledge / well-being practices.
Caviar not Rent!
2020-05-05
As millions join the ranks of the unemployed, the choice between food and rent becomes all the more pressing. Drawing from the international rent strike slogan “Food not Rent” we commemorated this years International Workers’ Day with the slogan “Caviar not Rent,” on our flag outside Luna6. We don’t only want live but live well. As workers and renters, we don’t only want to be exploited less, but not exploited as such. We do not want to be used as workers or renters, but rather to contribute to this world according to our capabilities, desires, needs and pleasures. Although there isn’t a tenants movement in Lithuania to organize demands for rent cancellations and eviction freezes, a simple measure that can be taken is asking landlords for rent reductions. Were happy to announce that Luna6 received a rent reduction after an effort was made to approach the landlord. Below you can find a template letter that can be used for writing to to your residential landlord. Dear x We hope you're keeping well in these really strange and fast-changing circumstances! We're watching developments about COVID-19 very closely and are, as you might imagine, really concerned. We work in ________ and live paycheck to paycheck each month. We’re going to be earning much less over the coming months. We rarely have more than one month’s rent available at any one moment. [add more details about your situation - make it as personal as you feel comfortable to] For these reasons, we kindly request a rent reduction and eviction suspension until the situation improves. Many of our community members are in a similar situation, we need your help to promote the health and stability of our communities. We hope that the mortgage holiday that has been offered for all landlords may help you financially in this task. We hope, for ourselves and for everyone's sake, that life becomes more stable as soon as possible. Until then, it seems all we can do is be pragmatic, avoid panic, and support each other as best we can. We hope you can consider this. Do let us know if speaking on the phone would be helpful.
Housing is Health. Everyone Deserves It.
2020-04-21
[RU] ОТМЕНИТЬ АРЕНДНУЮ ПЛАТУ / ЗАМОРОЗИТЬ ВЫСЕЛЕНИЯ / ЖИЛЬЕ ДЛЯ ВСЕХ
[LT] PANAIKINTI NUOMOS MOKESTĮ / SUSTABDYTI IŠKELDINIMUS / BŪSTAS VISIEMS
A Call for Revolutionary Care
2020-04-08
Over the last year various groups and individuals have participated in building what we now call Luna6. Through this process many of us began to make some new friends, cultivate a communal politics, and learn how to coordinate the resources and skills necessary to get stuff done. The neighbors who brought us honey from their parents garden or supplied us with the tools and skills we needed to build much of the space; the friend who made the call for everyone to buy a fold-able chair; those that cooked food during the meals on Monday or contributed their artistic backgrounds for design; the coders that build and maintain our site; all of these little acts and shared moments contribute to an ever growing common power and knowledge. These practices of support and solidarity are needed now more than ever.
As the everyday crisis of capitalism enters another period of acute catastrophe, calls for revolutionary care circulate throughout the world. Both experienced groups and newly acquainted individuals are building disaster communities that offer “glimpses of hope: microcosms of a world formed otherwise.” Through the direct communalisation of privately hoarded resources, the opening of unused spaces to those that lack access to shelter, the coordination of care (such as food delivery for the immuno-compromised and the sharing of medical knowledge), collective self-reductions of rent, prison rebellions and workplace strikes; social forms have begun to appear which support our capacity to deliver radical demands to the state and capital.
In the absence of these real communities of care, without an actual base of social power to leverage threats, our demands will go vastly unheard; or at best incorporated into policies convenient to the state in its temporary issuance of “disaster socialist” measures –– whatever it will take to keep the beast going.
As a still small and quite new group the capacities of our disaster community may be minor but by no means insignificant. Contact us to join our meetings where we will share personal experience, analyze the local situations, connect with other groups, collect resources, and strategise. We welcome proposals and contributions of various forms.
