A moment of kindness
His family were murdered. He was trafficked. His organs were removed. The story of Fahad’s journey to the UK is a series of tragedies and horrors, and it didn’t finish when he arrived here. For more than a year now he has been kept in hotel accommodation waiting on an interview that never comes. Endless mistakes by the Home Office have left him even more vulnerable than he was when he arrived. Since the start of his journey, he has tried to kill himself three times. I’ve been supporting him for 18 months ago, and I know he’s not in …
Jawaad’s story
My name is Jawaad and I am a Mancunian barber. For the last two weeks I’ve been doing hair cuts with Care4Calais for Afghan families who were airlifted out of Kabul. I have my own shop in Stockport called Gents Cut and have been cutting hair for about seven years now. But it wasn’t always this way. I had a difficult childhood, didn’t really have anyone to care for me and I fell off the rails big time in my teens. I spent some time inside. I’m not gonna say that was a good thing but it changed me. I …
“Thank you, Amazon”
In the last few weeks we have delivered thousands of essential items to Afghan refugees all over the UK. It has made a vast difference to countless people. However a lot of work goes on in the background to make it happen. This week we had to put a call out for volunteer drivers, as so much stuff has been donated by generous people we simply didn’t have the manpower to move it all. Some amazing people have stepped up to help, and among them was Amazon.co.uk. Today their drivers made six collections for us and more are planned over …
An amazing community
These are some members of the incredible community that I’ve helped to create with my fellow volunteers over the last eleven months. Back in October 2020 I volunteered to be a hotel lead for @care4calais, and I now look after a hotel with 220 refugees living in it. Over the last 10 months we have run fitness and walking activities every Saturday bringing this community together. We have also run clothes distributions, hosted English classes, advocated for countless refugees, stepped in to support with doctors, mental health, housing and countless other things I can’t even think of right now. …
Helping young Afghan refugees
I sat in the corridor of a hotel with some young Afghan children desperate to be entertained. It must be so tiresome for them confined to a hotel in a cold, wet country where everything feels different. A small child sat clutching a ‘Happy families’ card game, the type you might easily discard from a Christmas cracker. After a little convincing to open the packet, I set about trying to teach them how to play. One by one, they began to giggle and call over their friends, totally captivated in a simple game which for a few moments at …
Calling all vans and drivers!
** Help Needed – Please Share ** In the last few weeks people have been unbelievably generous with donations for newly arrived Afghan refugees. It’s been truly heartwarming to see. But – we now need to get all these amazing donations to where they need to be. We urgently need your help. We need VANS and DRIVERS. If you have a van, know someone who has a van, or can access a van and would be willing to help, please please get in touch now. Without your help we can’t get this essential stuff to the people who desperately …
Kids’ kindness will make refugees’ day
We love this! Children at a school in London have made up 60 gift packs – one for each of the refugee children at a London hotel we visited. Christmas is coming early tomorrow! …
Clearances in Dunkirk
On Thursday evening I got a panicked text from a friend in Dunkirk. Hundreds of riot police were descending on the large camp there, they said, accompanied by dozens of vans filled with CRS police and gendarmerie. Behind them were refuse trucks for the tents and belongings to be thrown in. And behind the trucks were land cleaners and diggers. This patch of scrub land had been home to a growing number of refugees, mainly from the persecuted Kurdish regions of the Middle East. It was turning into a bustling community, which is the very thing that terrifies the …
Why refugees love joggers
Today was a good day. We gave out 202 pairs of new joggers – the kind the refugees here like, with narrow legs, tie waistband, a cuff at the bottom, and zip pockets. It might sound strange to have such strong preferences, but there are important reasons for them. The narrow legs and tie mean almost any size will more or less fit you; the zip pockets may well be the most secure place you have to keep your paper and phone; the cuff bottom means they don’t drag in the mud. “I like these, they are safe,” a young …
Afghani artist Shamsia Hassani
Today I saw a picture that completely broke my heart. It’s by Shamsia Hassani, a young Afghan woman who’s a graffiti artist and a professor of Drawing and Anatomy drawing at Kabul University. It shows a woman and her baby united by heartbreak, as aggression and violence ride roughshod over their thoughts and dreams. Looking at it I’m horrified and yet deeply moved at the same time. A refugee in a hotel where I was volunteering showed it to me as we talked about her journey from Afghanistan; that moment melted my heart and feelings beyond words passed between us. …
