Helping in Calais
Back in the UK and reflecting on Calais and the
10,000 people there dependent on our help.
Jim and I ended up with very different experiences and yet ultimately very similar. I spent all my time outdoors in the woodyard whereas Jim was in the warehouse. We therefore met and talked with entirely different people. Every volunteer has a different story. Many (possibly most) are there on their own, answering some inner voice that compels them to get involved. They are all ages, all nationalities, all backgrounds. Self-employed musicians and actors, corporate employees using their precious annual leave, the unemployed and the retired. Some very physically fit, many not so. The jobs are many and varied. Needless to say the woodyard is physically punishing but even there we had a lady yesterday with a bad back who found she could help by standing at the saw-station removing nails from planks. Some came with money, some with donations, some came with just their time and enthusiasm.
The operation is apparently chaotic but as I settled to it, I came to recognise that it is necessarily so. It is 100% reliant on charity donations and a volunteer workforce (including the people running it). Every single day is unpredictable. And unsurprisingly with a volunteer workforce, not everyone follows instructions or sticks at it - we had fewer in the woodyard after a couple of hours as people tired. In our different endeavours, we both found ourselves as "instructors" on day 2, leading the new-comers.
And yet despite this, it works. Every single day is an utterly bewildering, heart-lifting miracle. Genuinely, a miracle - there is no other word for it.
Jim has given me an insight into the sorting process in the warehouse as they try to rationalise the random and enormous quantities of donations. I saw the back-breaking repetitive process of providing firewood so every resident has the chance for some fire during the week -their only way to cook or create heat.
If (when?) The Jungle is dismantled next month it will be utterly cruel and dangerous if it doesn't come with proper alternatives. If these residents end up starting again in smaller camps spread along the coast, the aid effort will be so much harder. And what of the 1,000+ children, most of whom are unaccompanied? The French plan confesses to have made no provision for them. Absolutely unquestionably some will go missing to traffickers. How many is it acceptable to lose? A dozen? A hundred? 500? The eviction is politically motivated ahead of French elections next year - I just pray it isn't an empty gesture of vandalism to win votes in Calais or the hard-right, using the dispossessed as expendable currency. Help Refugees are calling urgently for bags, suitcases etc to help what they see as inevitable. Interestingly Care4Calais (which is another volunteer group helping out there) have started a petition and are desperately resisting the eviction. Who knows? All we can do is watch and hope that this shameful episode in our history IS resolved in a matter of weeks. But I fear it will just be a trick of changing the shape of the problem in order to dodge political bullets. In which case, we'll certainly return to help again, in whatever way turns out to be most helpful at the time.
Thank you everyone who supported us with money, donations and moral support - it makes a big difference to actual people, facing despair on a daily basis.
Jim and I ended up with very different experiences and yet ultimately very similar. I spent all my time outdoors in the woodyard whereas Jim was in the warehouse. We therefore met and talked with entirely different people. Every volunteer has a different story. Many (possibly most) are there on their own, answering some inner voice that compels them to get involved. They are all ages, all nationalities, all backgrounds. Self-employed musicians and actors, corporate employees using their precious annual leave, the unemployed and the retired. Some very physically fit, many not so. The jobs are many and varied. Needless to say the woodyard is physically punishing but even there we had a lady yesterday with a bad back who found she could help by standing at the saw-station removing nails from planks. Some came with money, some with donations, some came with just their time and enthusiasm.
The operation is apparently chaotic but as I settled to it, I came to recognise that it is necessarily so. It is 100% reliant on charity donations and a volunteer workforce (including the people running it). Every single day is unpredictable. And unsurprisingly with a volunteer workforce, not everyone follows instructions or sticks at it - we had fewer in the woodyard after a couple of hours as people tired. In our different endeavours, we both found ourselves as "instructors" on day 2, leading the new-comers.
And yet despite this, it works. Every single day is an utterly bewildering, heart-lifting miracle. Genuinely, a miracle - there is no other word for it.
Jim has given me an insight into the sorting process in the warehouse as they try to rationalise the random and enormous quantities of donations. I saw the back-breaking repetitive process of providing firewood so every resident has the chance for some fire during the week -their only way to cook or create heat.
If (when?) The Jungle is dismantled next month it will be utterly cruel and dangerous if it doesn't come with proper alternatives. If these residents end up starting again in smaller camps spread along the coast, the aid effort will be so much harder. And what of the 1,000+ children, most of whom are unaccompanied? The French plan confesses to have made no provision for them. Absolutely unquestionably some will go missing to traffickers. How many is it acceptable to lose? A dozen? A hundred? 500? The eviction is politically motivated ahead of French elections next year - I just pray it isn't an empty gesture of vandalism to win votes in Calais or the hard-right, using the dispossessed as expendable currency. Help Refugees are calling urgently for bags, suitcases etc to help what they see as inevitable. Interestingly Care4Calais (which is another volunteer group helping out there) have started a petition and are desperately resisting the eviction. Who knows? All we can do is watch and hope that this shameful episode in our history IS resolved in a matter of weeks. But I fear it will just be a trick of changing the shape of the problem in order to dodge political bullets. In which case, we'll certainly return to help again, in whatever way turns out to be most helpful at the time.
Thank you everyone who supported us with money, donations and moral support - it makes a big difference to actual people, facing despair on a daily basis.
Jim can measure his contribution in pairs of shoes
- he personally has sorted thousands and knows that individual people
will receive shoes this week who would not have done so without him.
My contribution is tons of wood - more people can cook or warm
themselves this week specifically because I was there.
This is OUR problem and it isn't going away - history will tell a story.
This is OUR problem and it isn't going away - history will tell a story.
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