Trade Unionists 4 Calais Day 3

Day Three – trade unionists for Calais – Monday 15th February

Two new members of our delegation, who arrived on Sunday evening, drove on Monday morning through the freezing rain and sleet, to the warehouse ready to help early in the morning. The warehouse was much quieter than over the weekend when there had been 100 volunteers. One of our contributions was to cook lunch for all of the volunteers on the Sunday. Four people worked flat out to cook soup and make 80 sandwiches to take to the warehouse. They were dished out and every last scrap finished.

Monday proved to be much quieter. However every hour several vans pull up, with people arriving from different places and different countries, delivering donations, showing their support. One of the new volunteers told us, “I met a woman from Afghanistan”. She told me: “America and the UK are the first to jump to go to war in the name of the Afghan people, but when the same Afghan people come and ask for help, we are called migrants and told we are bad people”’

Another joined a food distribution run to the camp and commented: “When I was handing out the parcels I shed a tear. I felt such sadness looking at people who are educated, articulate, but so desperate and so grateful for the small bit of aid we could hand out. It does not seem that we are doing enough but for them it is their whole world and a lifeline. I want to do more’

A van full of supplies, including lots of school equipment was delivered, as part of the Trade Unionists 4 Calais project, including a box full of dictionaries in Arabic English, Farsi/English and Pashto/English bought with some of the money donated from trade union branches and those giving to the crowd funding page. Also in the van, a table tennis table, bought by a Head teacher, generously donated to give the unaccompanied young people some distraction from the realities of life on the camp.

A second full day of teaching, in classrooms erected only a couple of weeks before, went well. Buildings that are not heated and where rain drips through the ceiling, but where there are constantly streams of people coming to ask for lesson in English and in French.

Two NUJ members joined the group travelling to Calais with the MEP Julie Ward. She has pledged to raise the issue at every level she could and spoke to activists about the threat to evict half the camp in the coming week. She had been recently to Germany and was shocked at the comparison with how much they are doing in Germany for the refugees and the scant provision for those in Calais and Dunkirk. They said: “The French state does not want these people; the British state is not allowing them to enter the UK. Neither the French nor the British states are allowing them to enter the UK. They are now intending to evict them from the place where they have made homes for themselves insofar as you can describe any habitation on the camp as a home. But it feels like a home and is the only place left for these people.”

The rush to compile a legal case against the evictions is gathering pace, and petitions not the camp are circling against the demolition. If it is issued on Thursday as feared, it could be half destroyed by Monday and Care4Calais today asked people to email their MPs and MEPs in protest.