To Calais

I am going back to Calais next week to work alongside the charity Help Refugees. Specifically I will be working in the Woodyard, providing firewood for refugees to use for cooking and heat.

The most obvious question is “why?...didn't they close The Jungle?” The answer is, yes, The Jungle is closed. However, there remains a much smaller camp at Dunkirk, mainly for women and children, to which the Calais warehouse and Woodyard send help on a daily basis. 

In addition, Calais now acts as a hub, sending aid directly to Syria, Greece and Lebanon. As widely anticipated, evicting people from Calais brought short-term solutions, but has also led to refugees congregating elsewhere. There is now a terrible problem in Paris, where many refugees sleep every night on pavements.The police do not allow them to put up tents, and if they catch them they confiscate even sleeping bags. This in sub-zero temperatures, rain and snow. 

This refugee crisis is worse than anything seen since the second world war. Several refugees are known to have died in Europe as a result of the cold weather so far this month. I know the politics are complicated but all I see are fellow human beings, suffering terribly. Where there is a will, there is ALWAYS a way.

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