Meet Katie, our Yorkshire force of nature!
“The word I’d most associate with supporting refugees is joy. Yes, joy! “Because you see joy on the faces of people when you make them feel safe and wanted, and you feel joy at being part of a team doing good things. That’s why our Care4Calais team celebrates when things go right, and if people are hostile to us and refugees, well, when they go low, we go high. “If the far right are doing hateful things in our area, we say RIGHT! Let’s have some picnics! Let’s throw a party! Let’s do things that are filled with love! “You …
Never forget: A vigil for the Channel drownings
On 24 November last year, 32 men, women and children died in the English Channel when their flimsy boat sank in the freezing cold sea, and British and French authorities ignored their desperate calls for help.. Those authorities face countless questions about what happened that fateful night, but a year on the victims’ families are still waiting for answers. They have been let down appallingly by the British and the French states, and at the very least they deserve explanations about what happened their loved ones. For the victims and their families, we demand justice, and we will never let …
A game with the kind cricketers of Dunkirk
Today I was watching a highly competitive cricket match between Afghan refugees in Dunkirk. It’s getting quite muddy now so I suppose their matches are going to become more difficult, but today they were doing ok. Some of them are really good players. I got talking to a young Afghan refugee called Ali about the T20 Cricket World Cup, which is is being played in Australia at the moment. He explained they were all following Afghanistan’s progress, “because for us, cricket is like football for you. It is everything to us. “That is why it’s good Care4Calais brings the ball, …
For the Love of Bikes
Today I was helping on the cycle repair station at our distribution in Calais when a young Sudanese guy called Abu rode up on a distinctly battered, wonky-looking bike. He must have noticed me looking because he said, “You like it? I bought it today. One thousand Euro!” I must have looked surprised because he burst out laughing. “Tour de France bike! But now I just fix,” he said. Of course he hadn’t paid for the bike at all. As I helped him straighten the spokes, he explained that he had found it as a wreck weeks ago, and …
Meet Katey, our amazing lead volunteer in Croydon!
Katey has a wonderful, warm way with people, and somehow always seems to remember the names of the people she helps, even after meeting them just once. This means a lot; when she talks to refugees you can see their smiles breaking out to match hers. “As volunteers we just try to show refugees that there’s hope in the world, and they don’t have to suffer alone,” she says. “We see a ripple effect; if you someone feel better, they’ll make others around them feel happier too. And you feel amazing to see the effect.” Katey began volunteering in Calais …
Meet Claire, the extraordinary English teacher
Claire is a kind, unassuming woman who works as an English teacher in the UK. When she found out that we offer English lessons to refugees at our distributions, she thought her experience might mean she could help there. And she was right. As she talked to people who were hungry to learn, you could see her energy and warmth inspiring them. Some had pretty basic English, and she’d start just teaching the alphabet. With others she’d explain how sentences work. At one point I noticed Mohammed, a young man from Sudan, shyly waiting for her. He seemed ok, …
Helping new arrivals as the weather worsens
Last night, in my home on the south coast of England, I listened to the sounds of the search and rescue helicopter circling overhead. As I looked out into the darkness, I couldn’t help but think of the men, women and children that could be out in the sea, exhausted and terrified in tiny boats, a short distance away. It was an utterly helpless feeling. As autumn has drawn in sea conditions have become worse, and the risks greater. September was a very busy month for our ERT, and October is proving to be just as busy. Last week …
Home Office gives pregnant refugee Rwanda letter
Delina, a Eritrean refugee who fled to the UK, is 37 weeks pregnant. Despite this the UK Home Office is, shockingly, trying to force her onto a plane so they can deport her to Rwanda. The Home Office has previously said that it would not send pregnant women to Rwanda under its new scheme. However, we have seen paperwork that shows they knew Delina was pregnant, but still served her with a letter saying she would sent to Rwanda. This is an incredibly brutal example of the carelessness of the Rwanda plan, and the horrific human suffering that it causes. …
Meet Caroline and Kitty, the homework helpers of Henley!
One thing we love about our volunteers is the way they recognise the needs of individual refugees, and then use their own talents to respond. That happened in Henley On Thames with this brilliant mum and daughter team of Caroline and Kitty. After signing up they took a bit of time to get to know what volunteering with Care4calais is all about, and to think about how they could best help. Kitty had just finished her GCSEs, and so school and homework had been a big part of her life for quite a while. She pointed out that starting …
Ramtin’s story
Today we were distributing SIM cards to refugees in Dunkirk when I met Ramtin. He’d just arrived at the site with his wife after fleeing from Iran, and he said he was feeling like he was “in a very bad situation”. A few weeks ago he had been living a normal life as a financial manager in Iran. Then he had heard about a protest against the government, and wanted to go along, just to make his feelings known. But the police had grabbed him and put him into detention, and even though he’d been released, he knew they …
