Dunkirk Blog
Three weeks ago I saw an appeal from Elaine looking for Volunteers to go to Dunkirk in France to help support and give out aid to the women and children in camp over there.
I was available to go and really wanted to support in any way I can.
So it was sorted. I was off to Dunkirk in 10 days with a small team from People in Motion.
Nothing would have ever prepared me for what I saw and experienced over there, it was life enhancing, life changing, harrowing and beautiful.
The first day we arrived Mel and I drove off the ferry in Calais and headed 30KM down the motorway to the Grande Synthe camp. We saw the Calais camp on the way, we hadn’t imagined the Calais camp was so close, that it was out in the open surrounded by ‘normal’ life. The shock hit us quite brutally.
As we hit the Dunkirk camp to meet Elaine and the team we saw many of the people mostly men who were ‘living’ in camp. They approached the car, full of hope and need, asking for boots and tracksuits. We mainly had clothing for women and children, but a young boy on a bike had a coat off us, as he put it on proudly, he rode off shouting “ thank you England” He was smiling from ear to ear.
We couldn’t do much on the first day as we were pretty exhausted from the journey and we needed to get our heads together to prepare, so we headed to our little French country apartment for a team meeting and brief on what the plan was for the week.
So it gets to Sunday, we were up bright and early, the morning was grey and miserable, we headed over to the Calais warehouse to unpack the car, sort out what we were taking to camp and unload the minibus that Nat, Doug and David had brought over, filled with tents, and blankets, clothes and boots, and food.
As we were unpacking we heard the Gendarmerie were away from camp so took the opportunity to get into camp as quickly as possible to get as many supplies in as we could.
As I walked into the camp for the first time, I heard a man shout “ Welcome to the Jungle”
I don’t think that statement will ever leave me. Here I was, stood in the middle of a refugee camp, surrounded by smiling happy people, children, women, men, volunteers, aid workers. The phenomenon of what I was about to experience hit me.
If I wrote about what I experienced every day in camp I would be writing a 10,000 word essay, so I’m going to try and keep it short and brief but imply the power of what happened as best I can. A few things of what I saw and did over there.
We set up a family who had just arrived to camp, they had slept the night before on the streets of Calais. A husband and wife, their 3 small children, all under the age of 6. As we cleared the rubbish from the ground, the mother breastfed her baby in the mud. We had to clear some space so we sawed down a tree, we put up the tent, this family had arrived with no possessions only hope, hope that they will get to England.
Everyday we walked around the camp with our bags laden with clothing for the women and children, trying to get around as much as possible, but it was so so hard, hard because of the mud, hard because of the cold, hard because of the weight, hard because the families were so welcoming and always wanted to sit with us and share stories to laugh and joke and bring some sunshine to their very very desperate lives.
We met people and families from all sorts of life, doctors, lawyers, nurses, people with family in the UK that they are desperately trying to get to, pregnant women, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles.
We gave out gas, clothing, food, little toys for the children, bubbles, scarves, wellies, blankets. In return, the people we met fed us, tried to even clothe us, gave us tea and enriched our lives with their positivity, hope and love.
Now I have witnessed some things in my life. I thought I had seen it all. But nothing like I said could prepare me.
For a 10 year old boy to come running up to me begging for water because the police in Calais had started tear gassing the people on the street. Him and his father running off as the police chased them around the corner.
To see the police shoot at a group of 5 people including two women, just because they want to leave their war torn country and live in peace.
For women to ask everyday for us to help their children by taking them across to the UK.
For a man to look into my eyes with such sorrow because his child had slept on a frozen pillow.
To speak to a man in England who has asked me if there is any hope or chance that eventually his family will meet him in England.
To walk through human faeces to get to a tent with a family with three pregnant women,
To have a proud father tell us that we have changed his world because we got him a small camping heater
And for a middle aged woman to sob and sob and sob to us as she retold her story of how she and her 3 year old down syndrome boy and 14 year old daughter with learning difficulties walk from Iraq.
I can not tell you what the hardest part of this journey was for myself, i’m sure there is lots that I have left out, not because I have forgotten but to be in camp everyday for 5 or more hours there is a lot to see and hear.
Maybe the hardest part of the whole experience is me sitting here, my heating is on, I have running water, I have my car, I have my wifi, I have my bed. Knowing that just an hour away on your doorstep, the most beautiful generous welcoming people are living in complete and utter squalor. Children are walking through raw sewage, pregnant women are living in tents, not knowing where they will give birth, children are freezing every single night, proud fathers are crying themselves to sleep at night because they want to do best by their families by leaving war torn countries filled with terror and end up stuck in a no man's land.
These people I met can’t go forward and they can’t go back. The have left the worst of the worst to live in the worst.
It breaks my heart that these PEOPLE are there, but we can hopefully make a change, we can do our very best to provide them with what they need. we can lobby our MP’s, we can raise awareness, we can raise money, we can fund volunteers to help, we can take them the clothes, the blankets, the boots they most desperately need.
Please do not sit and read this and say there is nothing I can do. You can do anything you want if you want to. The plight of these people are living on your doorstep, in your world.
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