The trip to Calais began as a small idea. I’d only recently discovered that there was a refugee camp just hours from me and the more I thought about it and the more I talked about it the more frustrated and helpless I felt. I couldn’t believe that this situation was happening on my doorstep and I also struggled to understand how it had been there for so long without me knowing. You could call me ignorant and perhaps that’s fair but it’s one of those topics that isn’t in the news – you have to find out about it.
I decided to do something, I wanted to help and the first thought that came to me was taking a trip with supplies that would ease the living conditions of those there. I called Chris who was immediately on board – little did we know we’d outgrow his van and need a much bigger one in just a few weeks!
Writing this in retrospect is strange; at the time of planning I was filled with positivity that what we were doing was helpful and would make a difference. Now on the other side of the trip those thoughts seem blissfully ignorant and naïve.
The six crazy weeks of collecting donations and managing our facebook page went by in a blur. We had messages every single day from people that wanted to help or donate, it was completely overwhelming. Chris would arrive home from work on a daily basis to mountains of donations piled outside his front door. After a couple of days we were asking for people to help us with storage and complete strangers opened up their house to us and let us use their spare room. People like this are wonderful and it’s reassuring to know that other people care as much as we do.
It wasn’t long before we needed more storage and thankfully we got to use Al’s barn. We were adamant that we only took what was actually needed to Calais. Having joined a few other Calais action pages on facebook we made some good contacts and got some useful advice. We discovered that the majority of the refugees were male so we only needed to take men’s clothing, sensible men’s clothing. These people are living in Northern France with Winter fast approaching, they need warm, waterproof and durable items. The other sought after items were tents and tarpaulin as well as food, medicines and mobile phones.
We published a list of items to donate on our page and thankfully about 80% of what we received was useful. One of the biggest jobs was sorting. Sorting through the mountains of donations at the barn, thankfully we had friends that helped us through this else I’m pretty sure I’d still be doing it now.
It was quite interesting to see the range of donations, some people had put so much effort and thought into them including items like French to English dictionaries, torches, batteries, tent repair kits and camping chairs.
There were inevitably some more questionable donations which had the benefit of adding some entertainment to the process. We put to one side items such as an adult ninja turtle onesie, an Easter egg, ladies thongs and stilettos. Along with these we’ve also got a small van load of items which although unsuitable for Calais will be well received at local charities and shelters in Bournemouth.
We hope our donations to those in need in Bournemouth will go some way to appease the few people that have criticised us for taking aid to Calais when there are those in need here. A difficult argument to handle as there are indeed people in need here but there are in Calais too. Personally I don’t differentiate – people in need are people in need wherever they are and if I can help in any way I will.
We arrived at the barn just after 6am on Friday morning to meet Sophia from BBC Solent who got in contact with us through our facebook page and came down to interview us as we were packing the van. I’m pleased that local media have shown an interest as I truly think that if more people were aware of the situation just a few hours down the road then they may be moved to change it.
Thanks to Anne and Duncan who arrived bright and early to help us sort through our remaining items which made light work of the formidable mountain. By 5pm we were done. Van packed.
The journey to Kent was easy although both Chris and I were feeling uneasy about the next day. I had tried to read as many blogs and look at as many photos and videos as I could to mentally prepare myself for what it would be like but I still felt I had no idea.
We arrived in Calais on Saturday morning and on the first flyover that afforded a view across the land we could see the camp stretching as far as the eye could see. Tents and tarpaulin tied together with rope, tents in circles, tents in bushes, small camp-fires and clothes drying on bushes in the October sunshine. It looked strange to see a make-do camp site in the scrub next to the motorway.
We had an address to meet one of our contacts so we followed this route which took us off the motorway, half left and back under it to an industrial area. We drove past an entrance to the camp which was attended by a lot of Muslim women in high vis vests who were volunteers – we soon learnt that anyone in a high vis was a volunteer. Here there were refugees walking and cycling up and down the road outside the camp alone or in pairs, some with bags or on bicycles. Most seemed purposeless in their direction.
Around the corner we had to just stop for five and gather ourselves. We were in shock. We were there. What happens now? Who do we see? How does it work? With no officials or police or big charities there in control of the situation it’s quite daunting – there is no one in charge – just lots of small, independent groups.
Once we’d collected ourselves, we followed the road around for five minutes until we came to another entrance, this took us down one boundary line of the whole camp. It was a road of sorts with a high grassy bank to one side and a high fence to the other. The shanty town and it’s inhabitants were spilling over the bank into the road. This part looked more established with some structures made with bits of wood and even an arts centre and a bicycle repair centre. There were lots of signs painted with different messages in different languages – one of which read ‘No photos, No tourists’ in French.
There was a steady stream of people walking up and down the road who all looked at us with curiosity and I can only imagine the mix of other emotions. We saw a handful of women and a couple of children. The vast majority of people we saw were young men between 15 and 40. Although it was sunny, it was still a cool October morning and most people were dressed in Summer clothes with flip flops on or shoes with the backs cut away so they would fit.
We couldn’t get hold of our contact so we stopped anyone that looked like a volunteer to ask for help, unfortunately my GCSE French has not stayed in my head after 15 years of not using it and most of these volunteers were French so we didn’t get very far. We followed the road round to the Joules Ferry centre which is where most of the women and children stay which explains why there’s not many in the camp. We couldn’t go in there either and felt a bit helpless. Here we were with a van full of supplies, surrounded by those that needed them but unable to distribute. We knew that as much as we wanted to, we couldn’t just open the doors and hand stuff out as that would lead to pandemonium. From our research and our contacts we understood fully the importance of organised aid.
We went back down the road to the entrance and spotted some guys in high vis vests around a car with a UK number plate. The group were from High Wycombe and had come with hundreds of individual gift boxes for children collected through their Mosque. Having not found as many children as they expected, the group were off to a warehouse to store the rest.
Abed said that we could follow them to the warehouse and he would introduce us to the organisers there. While we were waiting to leave we got chatting and Abed told us that there’s around 150 people from the UK volunteering in the camp at the moment and that the French police don’t like it. When I asked why he said that the Police think the volunteers are encouraging the situation. Abed then went on to tell us that the police round up refugees they find in the area and bring them to the camp on a daily basis.
It seems contradictory and inhumane to me to use the camp as a recognised space for refugees but not make it more habitable, safe and sanitary. I also question why organisations such as the UN or NATO aren’t involved – it appears that no official bodies want to take responsibility for these people and I don’t understand why.
The warehouse was organised by L’auberge des Migrants which is a French group that has been helping refugees in Calais since 2008. When we arrived we met John who was in charge of the deliveries, distribution and storage.
The warehouse was immense with vans coming and going all the time. We had a brief tour so we knew where to take our donations and began unloading our van. Despite our hours of sorting, the clothing needed to go into their sorting area so it could be re-sorted into sizes. The reason behind this and the warehouse as a whole is that volunteers go into the camp and ask what people need. These items are then picked up from the warehouse by volunteers who take it back to the camp and direct to the people that need them. This process reduces the risk of people selling items in the camp and creating a black market as well as being an efficient and fair way to distribute. The only negative aspect was that aid was not reaching people immediately. There were probably around 40 volunteers helping out at the warehouse who were either sorting, packing, moving or distributing but when you have a refugee camp of 4,000+ then many more volunteers are needed in order to keep up with demand.
A van pulled up next to us with a couple in from Shoreham who had collected donations through their church and had a warehouse full which they were delivering to Calais over a series of weekends. They’d come over with two vans and delivered most of what they had into the L’auberge warehouse and were now going to the camp with tents and food as around 200 people had arrived the previous night with a similar amount expected today.
We happily gave over our 30 or so tents and our many boxes of food to the couple. Although we appreciated the organisation and structure of L’auberge it was important to both of us that our donations would help people as soon as possible.
Once we’d emptied the van we chatted to John who explained that they were struggling to keep hold of volunteers as they could come over for a couple of days but couldn’t afford any longer. We decided to give the money that we’d collected to L’auberge to help them deliver aid. From our short time there we soon realised that they weren’t short on donations, they were short on volunteers.
How was it? Everyone asks. Well, it was overwhelming and scary. I’m scared that our international system is so flawed that refugee camps like this have existed for over 15 years in Northern France. It was overwhelming in its sheer size and the fact that it’s on our doorstep and it’s filled with people, real people. Not numbers or statistics but people.
I know what we did was good but it’s hard to feel good about it as it’s by no way anywhere near enough and in the long run nothing. Governments, policies and laws need to change. Aid will help some people but it won’t change their situation.
Elizabeth McManus
