The Maitri Network and the Art of Improvising in Crisis
I am very proud of my participation in the Maitri Network in the early stages of COVID-19 and beyond. My role was small, though I documented the broader work and actively organized fundraising efforts for Indigenous women-led projects in the American Southwest. I have since stepped away, but wanted to share some lessons learned from that volatile period.
There are moments when the existing order collapses—when the structures designed to provide stability buckle under their own weight. Crises arrive with velocity, and the official response is often too slow, too rigid, too beholden to bureaucratic choreography. The Maitri Platform emerged in these gaps, these fractures in the system, as a network of people who simply did what needed to be done.
The Maitri Platform arose as a fluid, trust-based network in response to the failures of institutional crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not intended as an aid organization in the traditional sense—there were no rigid hierarchies, no lengthy approval processes, no standardized interventions. Instead, Maitri functioned as a web of relationships that moved resources, knowledge, and care to where they were most needed, as quickly as possible. Composed of over 100 volunteers across five continents, Maitri prioritized those who are left out of official response efforts—migrant workers, Indigenous communities, refugees, and others made vulnerable by systemic neglect. By redistributing power and decision-making to those closest to the crisis, Maitri bypassed bureaucratic delays, ensuring that aid is shaped by those who understand the urgency firsthand.
The network arose in April 2020, when the pandemic exposed the deep structural inequities in global crisis response. While governments and large organizations focused on stability and containment, entire populations were left stranded—unable to access support due to policy gaps, systemic discrimination, or simple indifference. Maitri was born in these blind spots, created by individuals who refused to wait for permission to act. Operating on the belief that change happens at the speed of trust, it grew through personal connections rather than institutional mandates. The first interventions were immediate and direct—moving funds to those who had lost income, securing protective equipment for communities overlooked by official distribution channels. Over time, Maitri evolved into a new model for crisis response, one that challenges the top-down logic of traditional aid and replaces it with a dynamic, decentralized approach to solidarity.
The Speed of Trust
The institutions we’ve inherited are built for control, not care. Aid organizations rely on forms, approvals, and compliance checklists. Maitri operated differently. Trust moves faster than bureaucracy. Instead of asking “Who qualifies for help?” the question is, “Who needs it?” Instead of monitoring impact, it created impact.
This is not an abstract claim. It played out in real time when government responses to COVID-19 left entire populations stranded—migrant workers, refugees, Indigenous communities. Maitri didn’t wait for a green light. It rerouted resources to those who were being ignored, moving with the urgency of lived experience rather than the detachment of policy documents.
Ingredients Without Recipes
One of the more evocative descriptions of Maitri is that it provides “ingredients without recipes”. This is a phrase that sticks because it so accurately captures the tension between freedom and confusion, between creative possibility and the desire for a clear path forward. For some, an open field is exhilarating. For others, it’s terrifying.
This resonates with much of my own work—the refusal of prefabricated answers, the embrace of uncertainty as a generative force. Maitri didn’t dictate how people should act. It offered tools, relationships, and resources, then stepped back and let people improvise. Some will create symphonies of care. Others might freeze in the absence of a script. That’s the risk. That’s also the point.
Three Key Actions Maitri Took in Response to COVID-19
Maitri’s interventions were guided by speed, trust, and improvisation, responding where institutions faltered. Three key initiatives—PPE production, fundraising for Indigenous communities, and repurposing sleep apnea machines—highlight the network’s ability to redirect resources, re-imagine aid, and break conventional rules in crisis response.
1. Converting Garment Factories for PPE Production
At the peak of the pandemic, global supply chains failed to meet demand for personal protective equipment (PPE), leaving front-line workers and vulnerable communities exposed. Maitri helped convert an Indian garment factory into a PPE production site, shifting its operations to manufacture isolation suits and other essential medical supplies. This wasn’t just about filling a supply gap—it was about hacking an existing system, repurposing industrial infrastructure, and moving faster than governments could approve procurement orders.
2. Fundraising for Indigenous-Led COVID-19 Response
Maitri also identified severe inequities in aid distribution, particularly in Indigenous communities across North America. Traditional funding mechanisms were slow, and Indigenous-led organizations struggled to access emergency relief. Maitri raised over $300,000 to support Indigenous-run initiatives, partnering with Return to the Heart, an Indigenous grant-making organization, to direct funds towards medical equipment, narrative change work, and direct community support. This effort required navigating unfamiliar funding environments and leveraging relationships in business, government, and philanthropy to shift money and attention where it was most needed.
3. Re-purposing Sleep Apnea Machines as Ventilators
With ventilator shortages in low-resource clinical settings, Maitri redirected last-generation sleep apnea machines (CPAP/BiPAP) for use as emergency respiratory support. These machines—typically used for treating sleep disorders—were adapted to provide non-invasive ventilation for COVID-19 patients in underfunded hospitals. This solution would have been unlikely in a traditional aid framework, where medical equipment follows rigid regulatory pathways. Maitri bypassed bureaucracy, moved existing technology into new applications, and provided an immediate solution where official procurement channels had failed.
The Mycelial Model: A Network That Feeds Itself
Institutions love the machine metaphor—efficiency, production, interchangeable parts. Maitri is something else entirely. It behaves more like a fungal network—sprawling, decentralized, thriving in the shadows.
Mycelium doesn’t wait for permission. It senses where nutrients are needed and moves them accordingly. It forms alliances rather than hierarchies, exchanging resources without central command. Maitri operates on similar principles:
No one needs approval to act. The structure exists in relationships, not in policy documents.
Knowledge moves sideways, not just downward. People learn from those on the ground, not just those at the top.
It grows at the edges. Crises don’t hit evenly, so the response can’t be uniform.
This is a different way to organize. This is a different way of seeing the world. It rejects the logic of control in favour of the logic of emergence.
Why This Matters (and Why It’s Uncomfortable)
Maitri is a glimpse of what organizing might look like when power is no longer the centre of gravity. It’s a model of action that defies categorization, which makes it both compelling and difficult. Those who benefit from control—institutions, funders, bureaucracies—struggle to understand it. Those who move through crisis with urgency and necessity recognize it instantly.
This report I offered wasn’t just about Maitri. It was about what happens when disorder is not something to be solved, but something to be navigated. It’s about trust as a survival strategy, improvisation as a discipline, and relationships as infrastructure.
If the past few years have made anything clear, it’s that the systems we rely on are not built for uncertainty. They crack when the world moves faster than they can process. Maitri is an argument—one made through action rather than theory—that other ways are possible. That disorder, when harnessed well, is not collapse but transformation.
The challenge is not just sustaining a project like this, but learning from it—letting it unsettle us in productive ways. That’s where the real work begins.