Mutual aid in remote areas: addressing the obstacles

Mutual aid is a powerful tool for individual and group change and an excellent means of promoting mental and physical health. This article examines the main factors that may hinder the development of self-help groups (SHGs) in rural and remote areas, specifically the Sudbury-Manitoulin region of Northern Ontario. It considers several issues common to rural areas, such as population distribution, geographic isolation, lack and inaccessibility of human and material resources, and local factors such as multiculturalism and multilingualism. One of the strategies considered for overcoming these obstacles is a model for a community mutual-aid organization based on a computerized network of mutual-aid services (central organization with regional units). The originality of the model lies in the recognition of computer technology and telecommunications as promising solutions to the problems of geographic, social and cultural isolation faced by remote and rural communities, solutions that may play a part in fully developing the potential for mutual aid in this type of community.