20th May 2016
**** is in hospital in Dunkirk and is likely to be in hospital for months. He’s a very fit young man in his early twenties, but it looks like a virus has attacked his brain and central nervous system.
He’s very traumatised and can’t speak French so a group of friends take care of him. They don’t have a car or money (because they had to escape their country because their lives were in danger) so they have to rely on volunteers to take them from Calais to Dunkirk and back again every day. They take him food that is more familiar and stay with him as long as they can to help calm him and explain his treatment to him.
The staff at the hospital are fantastic – warm and caring, but they don’t speak his language. The boys have transliterated some calming phrases in his language so that hospital staff can speak to him when they are not there. And the boys worry, and care and feed him and wipe his brow and search the camp to beg lifts from strangers every day to look after their friend.
They’ve only known him for 2 or 3 months.
We need people like this in the UK. Warm and bright and resourceful and resilient. I really don’t understand why we’re not letting them in.
19th May 2016
So. ****** is a lovely studious young man who is a refugee living in the camp in Calais. He has had to escape his country because his life is in danger there.
He has a relative living abroad who would like to help him, so this (far from rich) relative tries to send him a little money so that he doesn’t have to rely on charity.
But of course, ****** doesn’t have a passport because he’s a refugee. The cheapest exchange rates are usually by using a credit card, but ****** can’t have a credit card because he doesn’t have a passport, he can’t open a bank account, he can’t exchange the money in a bank, he can’t receive money transfers because he doesn’t have a passport because he had to leave his country because his life was in danger.
15th May 2016
So the edginess on Tuesday was a lot worse than I’d imagined.
I bumped into *********** , a sweet gentle 22 year old who hadn’t been to class for a few days. H…is mum and dad are both dead. Last time he’d invited me to chai and biscuits in his beautifully clean and tidy home with a borrowed stove, he’d asked me if I thought he should apply for asylum in France. I thought it was a good idea because trying to get to the UK is so dangerous. I thought that was why he hadn’t been to school.
He told me (well he didn’t tell me, he could hardly speak, his friend told me) that Tuesday night had been terrible.
They told me that a group of lads had run onto the motorway to try and stop lorries. *********** and one of his friends were up at the motorway too and so were the police with the tear gas. ***********’s friend ran across the road and got hit by a speeding car. They said that they screamed at the CRS to call an ambulance but that they were still throwing the tear gas and that *********** had watched his friend die and that they had photographs of it all on their phone.
They were now on their way to the mosque to try and collect money for the boy that died’s funeral because he came from a very poor family and they don’t have money for a funeral.
14th May 2016
******* is a boy who sometimes comes to the school. He is about 13 years old. He is here without his mum and dad. He sat down with our adult group the other day while he waited for some other children to arrive because he liked the look of what we were doing.
He wrote some words down. He didn’t know not to just write them on top of each other, to separate them, that he could write on separate lines in his exercise book.
He’s 13 and he’s alone.
10th May 2016
I moved into new accommodation yesterday. I gave a lot of thought to what would be essential in a home for my mental health and well being so that I could feel happy and be able to work. I need:
– a bed in a dry and safe place.
– access to hot water and a shower whenever I need it.
– food. Choice about what and when I eat. Access to a fridge so I can store food, and cooking facilities so I can make food I like.
– a table and chair so I can eat and work in a space other t…han my bed.
– wifi available whenever I need it so I can connect with my family and friends who are in different places.
– space where I can be on my own and have privacy when I need it.
The residents of the Calais refugee camp have NONE of these.
I also need:
Friendship and human connection. Feeling trusted by people around me, including strangers.
Freedom of movement – my British passport (and my Spanish one in case the UK leaves the EU!) and my bike.
Choices – about where I am, what work I do, who I spend time with.
The residents of the Calais refugee camp have NONE of these either.
We need to find a solution. Building fences and sending boats back is not a solution. We need to open the borders and allow every human being to live with dignity.