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Sunday 21 August 2016

A YEAR EXACTLY SINCE I FIRST GOT ACTIVELY INVOLVED, by Rachel Mantell: August 21st 2016

So. Calais.
We are going out this weekend to drop off aid; it will be my Calais-iversary- a year exactly since I first got actively involved.
And more people than ever before are living in that toxic, inhumane, shameful place.



As I fill a bin bag with dead rats and rotting food, I try very hard not to think about the family asleep just the other side of the canvas - a family which could very well be mine: mum and dad; adored toddler exploring the world, curious and bright eyed, turning everything into an adventure.
As I walk past the huts to drop off food, I block from my mind the eight and nine year olds I know live just behind there, alone, terrified, hungry, prey to the most vicious things the human mind can imagine. Children disappear in that place. Just disappear. Let's not think about that.
As I laugh and hug a friend by the medical caravans, I slam shut the door in my head which knows what they see in those caravans: scabies; trench foot; self harm injuries; TB; cuts and bruises from truncheons; head wounds and burns from tear gas and rubber bullets fired at people at point blank range; refugees eating tissues to silence the hunger pangs.  See, not treat- as treatment would be against the rules. What is happening to these people, apparently less of a concern than the rules.
Every so often something breaks through: the story of the Syrian mother separated from her tiny child as the lorry door closed before her baby could be handed to her. The old afghan man who gripped my arm and told me he was going to die there (I couldn't find him on the next trip- I have no idea what happened to him). The kind-eyed man who insisted on putting his gloves on my hands on a wet January day. Those fucking fences.
And the thing I avoid thinking about the most is the fact that each volunteer- each completely ordinary mum, student, actor, architect, shopkeeper, doctor- is doing more than our entire government. The fact that these people are being kept alive by a ragtag army of volunteers from all round the world. Because that is the most terrifying, upsetting thing of all.
Calais is hell and history will judge us for it.

Saturday 20 August 2016

ONE YEAR ON By Tess Berry-Hart of CALAIS ACTION: 20th August 2016

So exactly one year ago today I was so upset by the endless stream of desperate pictures on my Facebook and Twitter feed that I typed "how to help refugees" into Google and it came up with THIS article followingLiberace Gwendoline and her trip to Calais. 

I couldn't believe it - so this is how I could actually help! Along with Kate Coggins Clare Struthers Laura Campbell and many others I got in touch with Libby and before I knew it I was hosting the Calais Action North London collection in my front room.

I went away for the Bank Holiday and turned my phone off for the weekend. When I came back to 213 new messages in 48 hours I knew something big must have happened - the pictures of Aylan Kurdi had hit the news.

I know that many of us were caught up in the huge wave of empathy and need for action - I just remember that all of a sudden everybody from all walks of life appeared on my doorstep every day for a month - the youngest donor was two, bringing bags of sweets, and the oldest was ninety-six, who had cleared out the provisions of her own little pantry to help feed refugees in Calais. Overwhelmed by sacks of donations, I sent out an alarm call for volunteers and was deluged with help - from a whole spectrum of society including neighbours, former child refugees, economic migrants, taxi drivers, businesswomen, grandmothers, singers, actors, lawyers ... big ups Charlotte Randle Lily Bevan Anne Dorst Rowan Williams Seble Alemu Bates Kate Brittain Gubs Kemlo!
If ever there was an antidote to the horror of the refugee crisis then the sheer wealth of humanity and the response of so many good people was definitely the tonic.

I'd thought I'd collect a van of stuff for my first trip to Calais in September, but the collection in my front room had grown to such epic proportions that I had to relocate it into a nearby priest's house and garden (thanks Allison Holt Ambrogi!) and when the priest wanted his house back I found many Calais Action collections were having the same problem! 



So...we opened the warehouse in Crystal Palace, where over the next months teams of dedicated people such as Mags Proud Caroline Wyard Alice Faye CarelessGeorgia Mancio and Lynley Oram would sort, box, chuck, recycle, and load aid for Calais, Greece. Unsuitable but good stuff was sent to projects all around the UK. For months my feet did not touch the ground!


It wasn't all rosy, of course. As for most of us, it was learning on the job - what was/ wasn't needed for Calais, how to pack a pallet, how many pallets into a container, how to fill out a shipping manifest, is this Greek island big enough to handle this volume of stuff?!?!  Few people I met were trained aid workers and the high pressure and sheer volume of stuff meant I was knackered and irritable a lot of the time. The constant dramas in Calais and Greece meant that needs were often changing, but when you see what was achieved in making so many camps all over Europe habitable with functioning food and distribution systems over the following months, it seems like one of the huge achievements of humanity.

Like many people, I would have been amazed if, back then, you'd have told me that I'd be still working on the refugee aid effort a year later. If I thought anything, it was that we needed to plug the gap for a few weeks or months until the powers-that-be stepped in to sort the situation out. That obviously didn't happen, and it seems amazingly naive now to think that it would, but back then it seemed inconceivable that our governments would so lack the will to help those fleeing their own countries that it would be willing to let people die on its shores or freeze in its fields.

What I do know is that I wouldn't have changed this past year for anything. I've met the best people in the world, been involved in campaigning and speaking on refugee issues, and worked with so many different people from peers to pop stars. Despite all the frustrations and the fatigue, it's simply been one of the best times of my life. Big power up to the Calais Action team who are the dearest people in the world to me, and all of you in the people-to-people movement that I've met and worked next to and shared a beer or a cry with. You're what being human is all about!



Saturday 13 August 2016

TODAY IS MY #CALAISVERSARY By Renke Pieter Meuwese 13th August 2016

Exactly one year ago, I arrived in Calais, wide-eyed and without Jungle lung. So today is my ‪#‎Calaisversary‬. And is it a happy one? Well, kind of, surprisingly. Yesterday the judge blocked the destruction of the restaurants and shops - for now. And we had a beautiful evening with an open mike night, featuring our own superstar Sylvain de Saturne among many others.
In my first trip I met: Georges Gilles, Claudine MoineJulia Schmidt, James Fisher, Virginie Tiberghien, Zimako Jones, Matthew WrightDaniel Mark TomlinsonMartin NolanMaya KonfortiToby CaruanaClaire Wilson and of course Liz Clegg. These were the bad old days, the seriously pioneering times. As much as we may rightfully ask for food and clothes, for volunteers and money, the situation is still nowhere near as dire as it was in early August 2015.
Next I went out again, this time accompanied by Sytse Tjallingii, but not before meeting Wendy Van Der Zijden Doula and Sebastiaan Gamelkoorn and informing them on how Calais worked. See, I was an expert, because I had been there before, for a whole two weeks! This was a pattern that would continue on this trip. I was a tourguide for Tom Radcliffe and Shizuka, forHannah Slater and Rachael Heaven, and for Phi Lli BJosephine Naughtonand friends (those last two groups on the same day) as well as many people who just drove into the camp and really needed someone to show them the ropes. I particularly remember a group from Ireland who had a van full of tents and sleeping bags, but no plan to distribute them. I insisted the van be parked outside and we walked in with as many as we could comfortably carry, and brought them to the Sudan marquee where we handed them out, keeping a neat "line", even inside the marquee. Meanwhile the rain was pouring down like a new flood. In these same weeks I met Liz Hulse Gall,Terry NorwickMarcie ClarkeSamer MaxWilliam BurnsRachel Arundel,Hana Denton, Advia Ahmed and so many more people! Suddenly there seemed to be a real change possible in the camp. I gave my bike away as I was leaving this time, thinking it would be many months before I'd come back, if at all.
Well, that didn't happen. Less than a month later I was back. And this time there was an actual warehouse! Run by Help Refugees and Auberge des Migrants. Where I met John SloanDebs BennettAnnie Patricia GavrilescuOlivia LongSidonie FlahautSylvain de SaturneClare MoseleyMegan SaliuCaroline GregoryAnton ZhyzhynAmelia Iraheta and so many others. A bustling zone of activity which became my new place of working. In particular, I was organizing the boxes of sorted clothes.
And it stayed my place, even when the warehouse moved. 

As winter was setting in, the warehouse became more professional. We got the famous high vis gilets, including orange ones for team leaders. We had yellow trolleys in which the distributions for the next days were prepared. Daniel Martin led us with a clear vision. Johanna Verpoort dealt with stuff coming in and going out. The boxing was led by Will, the sort by Deb (yes, a second Deb on clothes sorting), and by late December by Simone Day and me. James "Robin Hood" helped out explaining the work to various sections.
Then followed the longest period of absence for me: January-early February, because I was in Peru. Important changes happened during this time: the first eviction happened, a strip of 100 m from the motorway. A clearance that most of the refugees and most of the volunteers cooperated with, reluctantly.
Also, Hettie Sashenka Colquhoun and Emma Weinstein Sheffield became the new team leading and coordinating the volunteers. Sarah Jane Corvidae was around, organizing a whole host of things. By this time the RCK was delivering meals to the camp, and CCK was providing food packs. And the prefecture was amping up the pressure: the entire southern half of the camp was going to be evicted. After a complex verdict from the judge in Lille, that indeed happened, and we're still feeling the effects.
It's much harder to try and remember exactly who was where when. A few people should have been in the last one already: Si Mon and Riaz Ahmad for example. And by early 2016, people like Robin LickerBear SmithEvie StewartJen McGlone and Bronwen James were essential. Johanna's role at the door was taken over by the incomparable Alexandra Becker. Two daughters of other volunteers in the camp became important pillars of the operations in their own right: Sophie Alexandria Radcliffe and Inca Sorrell.
Lucy Oliver-Harrison took over from me what was by this time my default role: leading the "main sort", i.e. the sorting of the adult clothes.
A few other people that need to be mentioned from this period: Graham FrostCharlotte HeadHamish HamishHarry Duncan Smith. Dear friends and very valued colleagues.
I'm going to leave the story here for now.  I need some rest, and the most recent months are too fresh still to clearly summarize. Also, the number of people to mention becomes almost impossibly large. It's been quite a ride. For those of you who were not at the warehouse this morning: I brought cake and got wished a happy birthday by some lovely volunteers who did not entirely grasp the reason for the cake... but that's fine. Let them eat cake.

Thursday 11 August 2016

A YEAR AGO TODAY by Chloe Le Fay: August 11th 2016

A year ago today I made my first trip over to the Calais jungle. Part of the trip was spurred on by some really really racist and hate filled comments about the human beings living there, from people I have to see every day. So I decided to look into it deeper and find out more. 


I am so glad I did. As I had lived in fear before, as fed to me by the gutter press and it had never really occurred to me to question the situation before. But it has completely opened me up as a person and enriched my life. I am so much more socially and politically aware and am able to pass that mantle to my kids who, let's face it, have got a hard job ahead of them. 

I no longer live in fear of the things I simply just didn't know about, I took the time to learn more and I am so grateful I did. 

The lack of compassion and understanding from so many people, and the lack of effort people are prepared to put into looking at the situation deeper and educating themselves (and maybe making themselves less fearful) knocked me sideways. It really made me question many things I thought I knew, and people I thought I knew.

Consequently, a whole wave of amazing new people have entered my life - Brits, and people from far flung countries I would never have had the chance to meet before. The variety of countries the Facebook Fiends tagged here come from or are living in, is amazing. The people I have met have blown me away. From the refugees who have shown such bravery, such honour, such gentleness and gratitude ( like the 14 year old girl who watched her 3 siblings die during 10 hours struggling in Turkish waters, who hugged and comforted ME) to the kindness and the sacrifice of the volunteers who've been prepared to do everything they can to help others. 

The division between those that 'do' and those that 'won't' seems to have got wider and I am ashamed at the behaviour of a lot of my countrymen. But I am also deeply, deeply proud of so many. And I have some friends now that I think, hope, will be friends for life.


The situation hasn't gone away, only the attention. In fact, if anything it has got worse. I needed some time off to get well and get my business back on track but I'm close to the finishing line then I will be turning my attention back towards those lost, hungry, cold frightened souls that need our help. I encourage you to do the same, even if you cant do it yourself, support someone tagged in this message, don't look away, look into it, in making someone else life just a tiny bit better, you might well make your life a whole lot better.


Tuesday 9 August 2016

A YEAR AGO TODAY, by Liz Gall: 9th August 2016

A year ago today, after days of online abuse, I finally woke up to some positive messages in my quest to take aid to Calais.

My daughter, Holly,  had been on a coach trip to Le Touquet with her school, which returned through Calais. She was upset by what she witnessed when their coach stopped on the bridge and wanted to know why we just couldn’t buy the refugees a ticket.

By the end of the day ‘Calais Refugee Support’ was formed.  We had donation points set up in Scotland - Claire Macaulay , North London -Nadiyya Constant, East London - Heidi Miner Guildford - Christina Manning, Gloucester - Claire Earl and Eastbourne - Marcie Clarke and I’d committed to driving to Calais with a car load of aid to find out more.

We delivered our first car loads of aid to a small church hall full of retired ladies and gents organising the good from the bad and issuing tickets via L’auberge for refugees to collect much needed items. Medicine du Monde occupied a good sized area in the North, there were no kitchens in the camp and only a few restaurants along the high street, faulty toilets stank and water supplies were limited. The camp covered the whole area between the Motorway, Rue de Garennes and Chemin des Dunes and was home to just 3000 refugees; around 2000 Sudanese and only around 300 women and children - mainly housed in the Jules Ferry Centre. The incredible sense of hope that resonated around the camp was quite overwhelming, and I was humbled by the hospitality and care I was shown by the refugees.

What a difference a year makes!
I returned to Calais every weekend, and stayed in the jungle, sleeping in shifts between Mark Thelord & Janders Afrine or Memo Petro Weso & I (with Mr Tim) in their little red tent. One weekend I heard how after a beating to the head and knife to the leg, the victim was taken to Calais hospital where he received 22 stitches to the head (without being cleaned) and was immediately discharged back to the jungle. The stitches became infected as there was still mud in his hair and he was refused any follow up treatment because he was an asylum seeker and not a refugee. The stitches were later removed with a rusty razor blade by a friend.

On my return I was lucky to speak to Hassan Khalid Chaudhry who wanted to know how he could help - by the end of the week, Hassan, Raid Ali,Natalie Harrison and myself rocked up in Calais with an old caravan & bags of over the counter meds to a huge queue. 



Our aim was to put medics in the jungle on Saturdays and Sunday when MdM did not open. By November we were providing 7 day care.  We now have a great relationship with the Calais hospital who we operate a mutual referral system & are now the only medics in the camp.

Refugee Support currently has just short of 8000 followers. Our First Aid Team has a growing database of medics, dentists, podiatrists and physiotherapist volunteers who are providing essential care in the jungle 7 days a week. Our UK team provides starter packs for new arrivals and is currently piloting a project providing free english lessons and drop in healthcare clinics in East London with a view to rolling this out in other NASS dispersal areas.

A big thank you to everyone who is helping us to continue our work and much love to all the wonderful friends I've met on the way.


Friday 5 August 2016

OH HOW YOUR LIFE CAN CHANGE IN A YEAR by Jaz O'Hara of The Worldwide Tribe: August 5th 2016


Today is my one-year anniversary with the Jungle. One year ago today I visited the camp for the first time, and it changed the whole course of my life forever.
It’s been the craziest, most overwhelming, emotional year i’ve ever known, by a very long way...
From meeting my heroes, my inspiration, on that first trip, which sparked a Facebook post that went viral and in turn galvanized a movement, to learning that even without anything, you can be rich.
This year has been about people coming together in support of each other ... The Worldwide Tribe.
In this last year The Worldwide Tribe has grown beyond my wildest imagination and achieved more than I could ever have dreamed of. Not only have we provided food, clothing, shelter and volunteers in camps all over Europe and the Middle East, we have produced 6 short films about life inside a refugee camp in the meantime.
We have done a bit of everything, from setting up Wifi in camps in Calais and Lesvos, to working on beach rescue operations and funding Search and Rescue training for 3 team members. We have run football tournaments and funded 6 teachers salaries in Turkey, supported therapeutic art sessions in Zaatari camp in Jordan, helped fund a custom fire-truck in the Calais Jungle and spoken at the UN headquarters in New York.
I’ve gone from knowing NOTHING about refugees to talking in schools, universities (including to my old uni course), colleges, offices, conferences and even giving a TED talk


We’ve held a one-day festival at the Barbican, have an on-going exhibition at the South Bank and have established amazing partnerships and fundraised for The School Bus project, Liz and the Women and Children’s centre and Mary and Sikander in the Kids Cafe in Calais.
We have fundraised for a new set of teeth for Jakoub after his were pulled out by the Taliban, for Noor to be able to walk again after a bomb went off at her uni in Damascus, for a vehicle for food distribution in Idomeni and for 21-year-old Hamed, attempting to stop his unjust deportation back to Afghanistan.
Last night, I went out for dinner with my family to celebrate my little brother Fin’s birthday. I sat in the restaurant in my home town feeling reflective. It was the restaurant I used to work in when I was 16.
How did I imagine my life would be in ten years time back when I was 16? Would I have been happy and proud of where I am now…
As we were eating, the waiter brought over a beautiful glass of champagne on a tray with fruit in the top. I presumed it was for Fin but the waiter asked, ‘Is there someone here called Jaz?’
Turns out someone at the bar had bought it for me to say thank you for the work I have been doing. They were gone before I could see who it was, but it made me feel so so grateful…
Grateful for the opportunity to follow my heart and my passion. Grateful that I love what I do, that I know that it’s right, that I’m on the right journey and that I’m exactly where I should be. Grateful that I believe in my work, I give it my everything, and grateful that people appreciate that.
Thank you to that person who bought that champagne, and thank you to everyone who has been on this crazy journey with me, from my friends in the Jungle, to the amazing Worldwide Tribe team, to my inspirational family, especially my little foster bro from Eritrea...you motivate me every day. I love you all SO SO much.