A socially distanced distribution in East London

It’s more important than ever to pull together and adapt our ways of working so that we can continue to help those who need it most. Our East London volunteers set up a socially distanced distribution last month in a local church, complying with their rules and national guidelines! We will continue to provide essential support to asylum seekers in the U.K. throughout this lockdown, as well as continuing our aid operations in Calais!

The distribution was a huge success – the team even set up an Amazon wish list in advance to help collect donations, and were overwhelmed with the response! They also handed out bags of essential toiletries on the day, and some of the asylum seekers in the local area were also keen to get involved – they helped out with sorting the donations in advance of the distribution.

‘When we arrived our lead volunteer gave a health and safety briefing with all of the rules. For set up we had 8 volunteers in an entire church, all with their own station to work at to sort the clothes. When the distribution started, we had a maximum of 6 people in the main part of the church, 3 refugees and 3 volunteers, with a guided one way system in place to go around each station. We had one volunteer on the door letting one person in as one left, and then in the atrium of the church, we had one more volunteer checking people off.

Of course, we had other measures in place too – hand sanitiser on the way in and on the way out, and masks mandatory at all times, including in the queue. We had socially distanced queueing and 3 volunteers to monitor the queue at all times. It worked really well and the church were really happy with us, and are happy to have us back for another distribution!’ – Lara, Care4Calais volunteer (U.K.)

For more information on precautions and guidance for volunteers in light of the latest Covid-19 restrictions, have a read of our last post: https://care4calais.org/news/latest-restrictions-and-volunteer-guidance/