Invitation to our Mutual Aid H.E.A.T.: learning practical solidarity

(Abre numa nova janela)

19/03/2026

Dear friends,

I'm afraid there's no substantive text from me today – I'm still a little overwhelmed by the fact that the Zero Books wants to bring out my little pink book in English, and I'm genuinely worried about how I'm going to manage organising our autumn event, writing a second book in German, and doing a culturally sensitive English translation of my first book all within the next 6–7 months, but I'll have to make it work somehow 😬

What there is, however, is something I – and perhaps some of you – have been eagerly anticipating: a text from the organising crew of our event, which until recently went by the somewhat inelegant name "future training camp" and is now called "Mutual Aid H.E.A.T." The text will explain in more detail what we – the crew, which has now grown to 20–30 people, made up in part of veterans from the Kollapscamp organising team, but also of people with entirely different political backgrounds – are planning for September; AND it will explain how you can take part in the event and how you can make sure you don't miss any registration deadlines.

We've taken care to explain the event in quite a lot of detail because... well, if I can take the word of my friend and comrade Riot Turtle, because there hasn't been an event quite like our Mutual Aid Heat in the 50 years of activism he's witnessed. We wanted to make sure you know what you’ll be getting yourselves into, as we're planning to communicate a great deal with participants in the run-up to the event, in order to begin preparing the period after the event before the event itself: because our aim isn't simply a one-off event after which everyone just goes home. Our aim is to contribute to the emergence of resilient, capable organised structures.

Lastly: the name of the event. H.E.A.T. stands for "hostile environment awareness training", a scenario-based, high-intensity training format developed for people working in crisis and disaster zones. To our ears, that sounded considerably cooler than the far too... literal previous name. And a radical project does need to be a little bit cool in order to generate resonance.

After that somewhat longer-than-planned preamble, here it is: information, details, and the invitation to Mutual Aid H.E.A.T. this September.

Yours,

Tadzio

Future Training Camp + Mutual Aid HEAT: learning to act together.

Imagine a disaster: the internet and phone lines go down, and panic spreads. Imagine you’re at a Pride march or in a refugee shelter, and suddenly a mob of Nazis is standing in front of you. Imagine that loads of people fall ill, and no doctor comes because the healthcare system has collapsed. Or imagine the food supply chain is in crisis, and suddenly there isn’t enough to eat. Imagine that normality is collapsing around you, people are starting to feel isolated and afraid. What do you need then to feel safe? What makes you feel unsafe, and how can you ensure that you are able to act?

And now imagine you are prepared, are trained in a whole range of emergency skills, practiced them together, and can provide practical help to yourself and others in a disaster. To make this possible, we invite you to a one-week intensive course: a mix of a training camp and immersion in a fictional world, in which we run through what we have learnt together in real-life scenarios (we cautiously call this: ‘Mutual Aid HEAT’: hostile environment awareness training). Four days of training in the fictional world, two days of running through what we’ve learnt in scenarios including reflecting on the experience together and in between learning movement history and spending time together to build relationships, which is central to ‘prepping in solidarity’.

When & where? 20th –27th of September, Alte Hoelle/Brandenburg.

Arrival on Sunday afternoon, the event begins Sunday evening with a joint plenary session.

The training sessions and scenarios start on Monday morning.

Departure takes place on Sunday around midday.

Why? With this event, we aim to move closer to creating structures which enable practical and emotional action in the face of disaster. This requires new formats that go deeper into skills and knowledge. This event is an attempt to learn a new kind of activism – one that recognises collapse brings greater risks, and so it requires more preparation and training than the campaign activism of past decades.

Who? We are planning an event for those who take the threat of collapse and authoritarianism as seriously as we do, who know that the time to prepare for climate disasters, authoritarian takeovers and systemic breakdowns is now, not just in a few years’ time. And we reach out to people who know that preparing for a future of increasing disasters means investing time and resources in this preparation now. We want this event to lead to practical organising, which is why it is not an “open invite” - event. Instead, we will communicate with potential participants in the run-up to the camp and organise a selection process. We are particularly keen to hear from collectives and groups who wish to participate or send “delegates”.

How many? We’re expecting between 150 and 200 participants, averaging 50 per ‘training strand’. As we’re likely to have limited access to institutional funding, we’ll need to charge participants a fee, but we can promise that no one will be excluded from taking part simply because they can’t afford it. Without practical solidarity, there can be no solidarity-based collapse movement.

What? The training part of the event will be divided into four topics (Communication; Collective Self-Protection; Supply and Logistics; Medical and Emotional Support). Each participant registers for just one of these training and is on site for the entire duration – we want to focus and go deep:

Training No. 1: Communication: What to do when the phone, internet and electricity go down?

At the start of the year, parts of Berlin didn’t just lose power, and many were left without heating – in the districts affected by the major power cut, nobody could make phone calls either. In our society, telecommunications are absolutely central to social participation in general, but also to organising all manner of demonstrations, parties, dates and family celebrations. And we see in authoritarian regimes that control over internet and ways of communication are key points of neutralising or suppressing resistance. So what happens if all telecommunications suddenly fail?

We want to prepare ourselves for such scenarios: we want to learn together how to communicate effectively and in a spirit of solidarity with one another in emergency situations, whether in person, via walkie-talkies or radio, or using a “Lora/Meshtastic” network. We are planning a four-day intensive training course on communication during disasters, because without communication, there can be no networks of solidarity in the event of a disaster.

Training No. 2: Collective self-defence: what to do if we are attacked?

Daily attacks on migrant and trans people, on women and queer people, on people with disabilities; organised attacks on refugee shelters, Nazi attacks on Pride parades, militant anti-feminism as a political project: the catastrophe of fascist violence is not a distant prospect; it is already affecting an ever-increasing number of marginalised communities on a massive and growing scale. And: whether the police will protect “us” in such situations is, at the very least, highly questionable; for some, the police themselves are one of the greatest sources of danger and physical violence. So what should we do if we are attacked and no one else is there to defend us?

To develop effective responses to these questions, we are planning a training session on the topic of “collective self-defence”. Of course, the best strategy is always one that deters potential attackers, but if that doesn’t work, we will also learn how to defend ourselves against people who attack us with or without weapons; how we need to move together to make gatherings such as demonstrations safer and how we can organise ourselves for and during such emergencies.

Training No. 3: Supplies and Logistics: What to do when there’s nothing left to eat?

The supermarkets are closed due to a power cut, the supply chains have broken down because of a transport collapse, or, or, or. Food is running out: what do we do? How do we start ensuring supplies for our neighbours, our ‘community’? How do we build solidarity-based logistics networks that can supply themselves and others with food in such a situation?

To prepare ourselves for such a situation, we are planning a four-day intensive training course on the topic of “Food Supply and Logistics”. What may sound a bit cumbersome, we consider to be essential knowledge in a future shaped by collapse dynamics: those who know where to find food and who can provide people with food form the core of a community. We want to start learning how to form this core in an emergency from the agricultural system through transport and logistics to “how and what do I cook for large groups?”, so that we can provide each other with good food even in the midst of a disaster.

Training Session 4: Medical and Emotional Support

In a future marked by cutbacks, disasters and collapse, it is unrealistic to assume that emergency medical and psychological care will always be available. We ourselves may not yet be directly affected, but for many people, such care no longer exists even today. Whether it’s a heatwave, a flood disaster or a Nazi attack, it’s never a bad thing to know how we can help others who are injured, unconscious or traumatised. Those who know what to do and what not to do in an emergency, and what can be achieved with the resources available, are no longer helpless at the mercy of attacks and other disasters.

To prepare ourselves for such situations, we are planning a four-day intensive training course on emergency care, emotional care & everyday medicine – it’s no coincidence that our grandparents knew about things like ‘calf wraps’. But it won’t just be about learning ‘technical’ skills, because we want to learn how to interact with one another in emergency situations, how to move together, and how to assess situations. Anyone who has ever experienced paramedics at demonstrations: they are our role models.

The shared highlight: Mutual Aid HEAT

In a practical training session set in a fictional world, you’ll have a unique opportunity to break away from everyday life and experience training and activism in a whole new way. This training offers you the chance to try out different actions, process your emotions and be supported by others, all within a safe space. Don’t we all recognise the phenomenon of attending a training session, learning something new, and then, the moment we’re supposed to apply it, finding we can no longer recall what we’ve learnt?

Standard HEAT training sessions repeatedly start from a scene, incorporate short role-plays, and allow theoretical knowledge to be experienced in short bursts. We will create a world where you, as participants, are continuously involved right from the start.

Recurring characters and scenarios that build on one another bring to life what it means to be capable of acting within a storyline. Because your decisions and behaviour, along with those of your group, do not end after every scene, we create a sense of community in which awareness can be fostered of how to deal with the crisis in solidarity with one another in the long term, to organise ourselves and to remain in solidarity beyond the theoretical.

If you are interested in taking part or supporting us in any way, please send an email to the following address:

zukunftstrainingslager@systemli.org (Abre numa nova janela) (PGP key available on request)

Your friendly Mutual Aid H.E.A.T. organising crew