Meet Mohammed, who is building a new life
Mohammed is a gently-spoken new dad, who dreams of opening his own hairdressing salon. The 24-year-old left Iraq just over two years ago, when his village was destroyed by war. He and his entire family – his parents and eight brothers and sisters – headed for Turkey, but the others were caught and deported back to Iraq. Mohammed carried on alone. “I’m from a village, between Mosul and Erbil. Our village was totally destroyed to the ground because they say it’s a war place. “That time when my family was arrested, that was the worst time in my life. I …
Watch: A morning in the life of our team
We nailed it this morning! 50 family food packs made up by 11am. Our amazing team in Calais are working super hard to keep people fed. Let’s see what tomorrow brings! Please support our urgent appeal to see people through this terrible time. …
Covid-19 survey: Food and shelter fears worse than ever
Over the last two weeks we surveyed 150 refugees across Calais and Dunkirk to gather data on the impacts of Covid-19. We want to assess both our own response and most-needed actions. The results are interesting. Almost half (48%) of those we talked to have only been in Calais for three months or less. This is a reminder of how transitory the population is – particularly given that for the last month there have been rigid travel restrictions in France and the rate of new arrivals has dropped. Only 14 people told us that Coronavirus was a primary concern for …
‘This has changed me’: Outgoing volunteer shares her story
Heidi has been with us in Calais for just over two weeks. The theatre-maker from Liverpool was among the first group of workers in the UK to have their work closed last month and she decided to go to Calais immediately. Before she left, she told us about her experience. “I work in the Everyman and the Philharmonic theatres in Liverpool, and they had to close because of the rule about mass gatherings. “I was planning to come out anyway. I’d booked a week, and then all this stuff kicked off, and my job closed, and I thought I can …
Man badly burnt by French police CS gas attack
I’ve seen a lot in in Calais over the last four and a half years, but yesterday something happened that took me back to the worst of 2015/16. As many services have shut down, we often get asked to take people to hospital. It’s hard as we are a small team and busy, but had to help a young man who had been sprayed in the face with CS gas by the police. This has become common in Calais, but as I got closer I could see, rather than the red eyes and puffy face I expected, serious burns covering …
Emergency appeal for Calais – please share
This is today’s shopping list. Each week, to feed every site in Calais and Dunkirk, we need to make 330 food parcels at a cost of approximately €4,450. This is incredibly hard to sustain, but right now we have no choice. We can no longer buy in bulk from the UK and we are clearing shelves at three Lidls in Calais every other day. Our volunteers are working long hours to make up hundreds of nutritious packs each morning. Refugees and migrants in Dunkirk and Calais are under threat from coronavirus (COVID-19) and also from lack of food. Please support …
Volunteer Charlotte finds hope and humanity in Calais crisis
Charlotte is one of the amazing team of volunteers still working hard at the forefront of Care4Calais’ work in northern France and Belgium. The 22-year-old from Barnsley brings huge passion and dynamism to the work. She said: “One of the biggest benefits of Care4Calais staying here is providing a sense of hope. If I was in the refugees’ situation, with no help, I would have completely lost hope. These are times when we’re supposed to rely on humanity. If you are going through a crisis and there is no-one there to help at that point – when can you rely …
Covid-19: Food still the top priority for refugees
Today we talked to refugees to assess if food is still the highest need. The answer was a definite ‘yes’. They showed us what the state provides – a cheese and ham sandwich (to Muslims) plus a yoghurt and an apple. Not much to last a day. We are continuing to provide food packs for cooking at all Calais sites and in Dunkirk. It’s getting harder every day and we’ve had to cease non essential services such as hair cutting and hot drinks. Today for the first time the French authorities came to one site and offered voluntary places at …
Refugees are more scared of starving than of coronavirus
This weekend we took 50 big family food parcels and 480 blankets to Dunkirk. The food situation there is deteriorating rapidly as volunteers pull out and services shut down. We distributed the food packs by going into the site and giving tickets to families or groups who cook together. Then the people bring the ticket to our van to collect the food parcel and blankets. My job this week was to wait with the van for them to arrive. I’ve done this before so was I not concerned with our team being small, but the current food shortage made the …
URGENT APPEAL – FOOD – PLEASE SHARE
The food supply for refugees in Calais and Dunkirk has drastically reduced. Some associations have pulled out and the French state have scaled back what they provide. Certain sites are reporting drinking water shortages. Today we spent €1,300 on food. We cannot sustain this for long. We provided 250 food packs for men in Calais and tomorrow we will take family food packs to Dunkirk. We urgently need supplies of – dried fruit and nuts – cereal bars – biscuits – long life milk – tinned tuna We need funds to buy the above locally along with supplies of fresh …
