Van fundraiser!

Dearest PIM supporters, As you know, the PIM team and our wonderful volunteers work amazingly hard to get your donations sorted and off to where they are needed. However, we have a reoccuring sticking point which often prevents us from being able to distribute important items quickly. We don't have a van. Until now we have relied on the kindness of the Leominster Baptist Church who have allowed us occasional use of their minibus, and the wonderful van owning individuals who have loaded up and driven around the country, and over the channel, delivering aid.  So, we're fundraising to buy People in Motion a van. This would be of huge benefit to the work we do and enable us to do  so much more. We would be so grateful if you could spare a few pennies and share this fundraising page around. Much love to you all https://www.gofundme.com/22hzeu7s

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The experiences of our amazing Lulu

The first time I walked into a refugee camp was January 16th 2016. Dunkirk France. One hours crossing on the channel. A day that changed my life. As I walked through camp I heard a man shout ‘welcome to the jungle’ those simple words summed it up. It was a jungle. A massive camp of tents and mud it was wild. The smell of burning wood and plastic from people huddled around tiny campfires trying to keep warm. I was frozen to the bone but I was lucky to have dry clothes on. The mud was past our ankles. As we arrived more refugees arrived. We met a family of 5 who had slept on the streets of Calais the night before. As the mother knelt to breast feed her child in the mud we rallied around to set up their home. A tent on hard ground surrounded by mud. We helped others that day. I put up 2 more tents for two groups of men. This was the beginning of my journey. I spent a week in camp, going from tent to tent, family to family, through mud and filth to take packs of clothes to the women and children. Every tent we went to were were greeted with smiles and gratitude. We shared stories with each other. We learnt about the people and they learnt about us. We made friends, we laughed together and cried together. I met a massive amount of people that week from the family of women with half of them pregnant who have no idea where or when they will give birth to their baby. To the man who hadn't slept in weeks because of a tooth abcess The woman with two children with learning difficulties who had been through hell and high water to get to France and lost her daughter and husband crossing the treacherous seas to get there. She cried and cried and all we could do was hold her and comfort her. The conditions were awful, the stories we heard were awful. Each night myself and the small team I was with sat in silence and reflection. People were living in makeshift shelters. On one of the days a man showed me his sons pillow. It was frozen. His eyes full of despair from not being able to provide for his family. We set out to buy camping heaters with the little funds we had. As we got to Calais the riot police were every where. Men women and children from Calais camp were trying to get on the lorries in hope of a better life in the UK. My eyes were fixated on one policeman as he shot a crowd of people. Plumes of smoke surrounded us. I jumped out the car to see what I could do, a boy aged 10 and his father ran towards us asking for water. It took a moment for me to realise it wasn't smoke we saw. It was tear gas. I washed the boys eyes his father would take nothing. He just wanted his son to be ok. It stung. When it all died down and was more controlled we sat. Our eyes nose and mouths stung. This only happened to me once. For some it's a daily occurrence. As we gave the camping heater to the family the father told me we had changed his world That first week in France I thought was the toughest week if my life. My second time in Dunkirk things had changed. There had been a new camp built. It was between a railway line and a motorway on waste ground. There were clean toilets, no more tents. People had shelter. A small hut 4 metre squared. It seems an improvement but the reality it wasn't. I met the same familiar faces and families. The family I first met are settled in France now. Some people have made it across. Some still there. Women in camp are now about ready to give birth. I imagine some already have. What life is it for a woman to bring her child into this world? Sometimes the atmosphere in camp had a good vibe. Sometimes it was sad vibe. Everyday someone would asked me if there would ever be a slight chance that they would make it to the UK. En Shallah I told them. “God willing” My heart broke. We continued our work of taking what we could to camp. We sat and ate with the families. We again shared tea and stories. The children are ill. The people are tired. They're loosing hope. I returned from Greece on Sunday. Somewhere in the north of Greece is a service station. It was a service station. 3,500 people around a 1000 of which are children are again living in tents. The garage still runs as a garage. What I witnessed this past week will haunt me forever. The sun beat on our backs. The children were the most loving affectionate people you could ever meet. We found out the first day that people had been wearing the same underwear for weeks. Our mission this week was to get new clean underwear to them. It was a tough job. People are desperate. I witnessed a fight of two women over shoes. We bought and distributed thousands of pairs of pants and bras. We were mobbed. I was constantly told about the bombs in Syria. How houses were flattened, businesses finished. Children injured. People who had died. To be told by a young boy that his Papa is gone because of the bombs. To see the fear in children's eyes as planes fly over. I worked a night shift working from a caravan only able to give out one cup of milk for each child because that's all we could ration. We were supposed to only give milk if the child was with their parent. Sometimes the children had no parent. The guilt eats at you. The food was rationed too. One plastic pint cup with a lentil curry or a pit with two potatoes cut into quarters and a bread roll. I don't think anyone ever slept. I became friends with a man from Iraq who has 5 children. They had witnessed their mother have her throat slit. One of the girls never smiled. She was so traumatised she just walked in circles. I met a 25 day old baby, she had been born in the camp. The innocence of her life and her parents doing everything they can to provide for her when they basically have nothing. I’ve met, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, vets, fashion designers the list goes on for the vast amount of people that I have met. Each one has with their own story and each one hoping. Families have been seperated, not knowing if they will ever see there brother, mother, sister, father, aunty, uncle or grandparents again. There's so much more I could tell you. This is just a tiny insight into what I saw and what I did. But I'm home now. Safe in the knowing that we did make people smile and we brought some dignity to people. Throughout the week a young boy aged 12 held me by the hand and walked with me, on the last day he never left my side, he waited patiently for me outside each tent I went to. He took me to his mama who hugged and kissed me. Once I had finished distribution he and his friend came back to the car with me. We had an icecream and a pepsi, we turned the radio up and danced in the rain, non stop laughing and dancing. He knew I was going home. As I said goodbye, he took me by the hand, handed me his ring, called me his friend and burst into tears. My heart broke again for the 100th time that week I'll be heading back in June. This time for longer. I don't know what to expect. Things change everyday. For now I strive to raise awareness and keep fighting for the most beautiful people I have ever met . This wasn't all because of me though. None of it would have been possible without a small organisation based in Worcestershire called People in Motion. They've funded my travel and accommodation. They've supported me every step of the way and I'm eternally grateful to the volunteers I have met along the way, the friends I have met and the people who still care.

by Lulu Billet

Dunkirk account by Emily Gibson

It’s hard to know where to start when you’ve been bombarded by so many sights, sounds, smells and experiences in such a short space of time. The refugee camp in Dunkirk is on quite a small strip of land in the middle of a housing estate, and near a small retail park with a garden centre and other shops. If you look out of your window at home, what do you see? The people living on this new looking, middle class housing estate see an unofficial camp site populated by women, men and children.

The volunteers park in the retail park, then it is a short walk down the street of houses, to the camp. Around 2,500 people live there. There is a constant flow of people, mainly men and children, coming out to the vans and cars. Some distribute aid from the car park, some try to carry it onto the camp, with varying levels of success. Within minutes people are coming up to ask what you have. They wanted shoes, track suit bottoms. They smile, say hello. There is often a quiet gentle resignation if you have to say no to what they want, and they move on.

There is a car park barrier at an entrance to the site, with one or two riot squad vans parked next to it, and between 4 and 8, sometimes more, gendarmes or CRS (riot police) police men. They stop everyone before they go in. The first time they told Doug, Mark and I that we needed special paperwork to get in. This is supposed new by-law. Only a handful of the volunteers have this. We told them who we were with, gave the names of long term volunteers that they would know, and somehow were let in. It is random, and many feel it depends which policeman you encounter, and what mood they are in, as to whether you get on site, and what with. A by-law was passed in Dunkirk a few weeks ago forbidding tents and building materials from being brought on site.

It was a dry weekend, and not too cold. I didn’t see the camp at its worst in that sense. Children were playing. Not on swings or slides, but on top of a huge pile of large rubbish bags covered in plastic. The mud is everywhere, deep mud, thick mud, watery mud. The air was thick with smoke from fires outside the tents, a source of heat and somewhere to cook basic meals. There were a few huge skips dotted around, and huge piles of rubbish. I hadn’t expected so much rubbish but its not exactly part of the regular refuse collection route in Dunkirk.

The first half hour or so on site, I had to keep reminding myself to switch off my emotions. I walked past a ‘ Jumperoo’ in the mud. My little boy had one when he was a baby. There was a teddy bear so caked in mud on the ground that you could easily miss it. Cuddly toys tied to branches on trees. Children riding bikes through the deep mud on the main ‘street’. A tiny boy clomping along with muddy men’s boots on. I don’t know if thats because he didn’t have anything else to put on his feet, or was he doing something all children do, clomping around in his daddy’s shoes? Children blowing bubbles. Volunteers blowing up modelling balloons and making a hat for a boy to wear. Children with lollipops. A tiny girl on a tricycle with a handle for adults to push it along with.

You walk past a tent that looks abandoned because it is so tatty and there is so much rubbish outside. And then you realise there is a family living in there. This happened alot. There are slogans dotted around, especially just at the side of the camp - ‘Don’t give up!’ ‘Keep believing‘ ‘I love u UK', ‘Open the Borders’. And someone has put laminated street names up on some trees. The main ‘street’ has one that says ‘David Cameron Street’.

There are a few walkways between tents of varying sizes, to structures that have been built out of plywood, pallets, tarpaulin. These walkways are literally pallets with netting over. Some pallets are broken, some wobble in the mud as you step on them. There is the ‘new arrivals' tent, with tents, blankets, sleeping bags in. Nearby is the women and children’s distribution room. Elsewhere there is a large structure, the kitchen, providing food, with a room attached where men’s clothes and shoes are distributed from.
Elsewhere on site is a small structure, a ‘Maktab’, a school for smaller children to learn through play. A safe, dry place for children to play, run by volunteers with teaching qualifications. Next to that is a tiny room for babies and young toddlers. They are desperate for more volunteers with relevant qualifications. Elsewhere on site is a huge green tent, a school for older children. It’s extremely basic. Some things have been improving, there are showers, a very small amount of chemical toilets, two stations with about six taps in each, a station to charge mobile phones.

A young man offered to carry some of our bags, asked us where we were taking them. He helped us carry aid to the right places to be distributed. Doug managed to get permission to drive the minibus on site. We unloaded clothes and shoes for the men’s distribution room, which was almost empty. Two volunteers and some men helped us, and some asked for items directly from the minibus. They crowded round, but there was no pushing or shoving. One man had shoes on with soles that had almost completely come off.

A little girl came up, she looked about 8. I thought she wanted something so I explained that we were only unloading clothes and shoes for men. She didn’t care, she just wanted to help. She was desperate to carry bin bags of aid down the slippery pallet pathway to the distribution room. She smiled, laughed, skipped. This was fun for her. I asked her name and told her mine. Then another little girl, around 5 years old, stood right behind me and held my hands in her cold hands, and peeped up at me from side to side. A sweet little game if peep-o started. She was a cheeky little thing, with a little backpack on. I gave them some warm ‘Frozen’ hats, bubbles and hair bobbles. They seemed carefree, at that moment in time. They weren’t worrying about the measles outbreak, or the EU deliberations on the refugee crisis, they were just playing. I don’t know their stories, what they have witnessed.

We bumped into our friend again later on, the man who had helped us with our bags. He had a quiet, calm sadness about him, a resignation to his situation that is hard to put into words. Mark and I had mud on our wellies and trousers, yet he had just a small amount on his white trainers, none on his trousers! We told him he must have perfected a way to walk in the mud, and he smiled and shrugged. He offered Mark and I a seat outside three tents that he and about 8 friends live in. They sat on logs, and gave camping chairs to us. They gave us some lamb in bread, and hot, sweet tea. His friends spoke to me in broken English about their experiences. One man kept telling me how living there, and his experiences, had driven him crazy. And how he was beaten by police in Bulgaria on his way to France.

That night it was wet and windy - Storm Imogen passing through – while we stayed in the hotel. To get on the site on Sunday the police looked at our passports and wrote down our passport numbers. We took some oranges, shoes and aftershave for our friend. He was touched by the aftershave, didn’t know what to say. It’s a luxury. We wanted to buy him some more camping chairs but most shops were shut. Afterwards we unloaded the rest of the aid that they had no space for on site at Dunkirk in the Care for Calais warehouse. In amongst the aid I found a camping chair that we didn’t know was in amongst everything, but we had no time to go back.

We drove past one side of the Jungle in Calais. Huge security fences, with a smaller inner security fence. You and I paid for those. Police and riot vans at various points. I glimpsed the small new container camp, details of which the media has been distorting and twisting. Then we got on the ferry back, where border control asked why we had been in France. Our passports were checked at three checkpoints, and they looked inside the minibus. When I got home I made tea for my little boy to have at nursery the next day, and checked on him, asleep in his warm bed.

We have to stop seeing the world through our own eyes, our own frames of reference and experience. You don’t come back feeling good about helping. You come back feeling devastated about having to do it at all. There is an INCREDIBLE international network of people working tirelessly in their own time to improve things for the people in Dunkirk and Calais. The media has told us to be scared. To see the minority as the majority.

People say look after your own? I am. They are us.

Mt First Week in 'The Jungle' by Jess Tasney

One of our newest volunteers Jess has written a piece about her first week volunteering in one of the refugee camps. Its such an amazing piece of writing, we are honored she is letting us share it.

My First Week in ‘The Jungle’

After spending a week in the Dunkirk refugee camp distributing aid to hard to reach women and children with Kirsty I feel both physically and emotionally exhausted, so to even begin comprehending what living in such undignified, devastating conditions does to the camp’s residents’ physical and mental health is way beyond me. I’ve never experienced so much emotion compounded into such a short time – any reading and video watching I had done to prepare before going to Dunkirk flew straight out the window because the reality of the situation is not done a justice at all in the media. Not only was I unprepared for seeing the utterly heart breaking conditions such kind and generous people are forced to live in, I was totally unprepared for hearing the horrors that people in the camp had experienced in their home countries. People in the camp told me they ‘love the jungle’ and I was so taken aback by this, but the sad reality is that the jungle is preferable to what many of its residents are fleeing.

It’s a total betrayal that in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, politics is prioritised – in just the week I spent in the camp I met many mothers with young children and babies, pregnant women, people who desperately needed medical attention and weren’t receiving any and I can’t understand how this is allowed to continue in modern-day Europe! On the first day in the camp I met a young girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old, who had been having a nose bleed for over 8 hours and still hadn’t received any medical attention despite her mother desperately trying to find some help. How is this an acceptable situation? If a parent in the UK allowed their child to have a nose bleed for 8 + hours without seeking any medical advice, the authorities would deem this neglect, yet if it’s a refugee child, it’s the governments and people in positions to make changes that do the neglecting. It seems that there is a huge issue with a ‘them’ and ‘us’ outlook, people don’t hear the words ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’ and imagine all the individuals with their own stories to tell and the similarities they share with us – the love within a refugee family, the insecurities refugee women feel about their bodies, the cheeky antics a refugee child will get up to; instead there’s a dehumanising perception of ‘a bunch of migrants’ and it’s become too easy for people to look no deeper than this perception.

As if being subjected to ankle deep mud riddled with faeces due to inadequate facilities and having only nylon tents for shelter in the winter isn’t humiliating and degrading enough, the people in the camp are also subjected to constant intimidation by the CRS and Gendarmerie. Just whilst I was there the CRS took to wearing surgical masks and parking their vans on the path so that on leaving the camp, refugees and volunteers were forced to walk through yet more mud past a group of bullies (trying not to swear!) who felt that breathing in the air outside the camp was below them. At one point the CRS wouldn’t let us enter the camp with aid for women and children and later in the week they began searching us not only when we entered the camp but also when we left… we thought about maybe trying to take pallets and tents out of the camp just to see what their reactions would be! I was told that a member of the CRS called a young boy in the camp a ‘faggot’ for not fighting in his own country and that tents had been urinated on by the police. In what world is this kind of callous behaviour allowed to continue?! Human beings have been forced to leave their homes where they have grown up, where they have created memories for their children and established their own fruitful careers only to live in the mud in the freezing cold, only to be allowed seven minute showers before they are shouted at to get out by French authorities and only to rely on handouts of basic essentials from volunteers. What’s so crazy about the entire situation, and that I could never have prepared myself for, is how beautiful, filled with kindness and generosity, and hopeful people living in the camp are – Kirsty and I were constantly invited to eat and drink tea with people, the hospitality was more than I had ever known and one gentleman said he was ashamed that he could not show us how hospitable he was in his own home. These are the little, yet such crucial things that we don’t hear about in the media. Despite a reliance on charades and broken English to communicate, the people I spoke with in the camp genuinely wanted to get to know us, we would show each other pictures of our relatives, talk about education, music, our hobbies and when you take all of this on board you realise that too much time is spent looking at the differences between Western and Eastern cultures and actually it is very easy to find a common ground.

On my second night in Dunkirk a young refugee, came to stay in the farmhouse with us, at first he seemed quite nervous but after a bite to eat and something to drink he started to relax and enjoy the evening – he wrote our names in Kurdish and even sang for us, his voice was beautiful!! After spending such a lovely evening with him, it made it even more difficult to see him over the next few days looking drained and emotionally battered – at one point towards the end of the week we bumped into him and both Kirsty and I were at a loss for words, how can you reassure people that everything will be okay and things will get better when they have to sleep in flimsy tents in the wind and rain? We can almost certainly say that our Conservative government won’t be allowing significant numbers of refugees into the UK in the foreseeable future, but the hope of making it into the UK is what many people in the camp run on, it’s the most heart breaking situation.

Mid-week in the camp Kirsty and I were distributing candles, everyone absolutely loved that we had candles! We heard a couple of bangs but thought nothing of it seeing as exploding gas bottles are a normal occurrence in the camp, and so we continued giving out aid when a young man ran past us holding his face and throat totally covered in blood. Even then Kirsty and I didn’t realise what had happened, I suppose because of how foreign a concept gun fights are to us in the UK, but when we next turned around everyone was either running or on the floor whilst shots were being fired. We could hear bullets whistling past us and hitting objects not more than 3m away but we just stood there in total shock until a group of men living in the camp grabbed us, pulled us behind shelter and formed a semi-circle around us to keep us out of harm’s way. They were absolutely amazing, to keep us calm they told us ‘not to worry, they shoot up at the sky for the birds’, we were panicking and these remarkable men were just cool and collected. Gav ran down shouting Kirsty’s name, the look on his face and sound in his voice when he couldn’t see us was one I can’t push out of my mind, he looked terrified. After the shots seemed to stop for a while Gav told us to leave the camp, and stood outside the camp just fifteen minutes or so later, a cycling proficiency test rode past - it was the most surreal thing! Something about the entire situation that I’m still struggling to process is just

how calm the refugees were about the shooting, multiple women just shrugged their shoulders at us as if to say ‘this is it, this is what we live with’, and the only panicking man I spoke to wasn’t panicking because of the gun fight, he was panicking because he worried we wouldn’t come back as a result of it, he felt he had to tell us he wasn’t a terrorist and it’s terrorists he wants to escape from. It’s just the most upsetting thing to hear someone feeling like they have to explain to you that they are not a terrorist.

During the shooting, Gav ran down to MSF with the young man who had been shot in the face and told the Gendarmerie that there was a shooting and to come and help! Instead of diffusing the situation, the Gendarmerie went and stood behind their vans at the entrance of the camp and did nothing until an hour later when they stopped letting anyone into the camp and twenty or so riot vans turned up. It turns out that through the night the Gendarmerie stormed through people’s tents, including families’ tents, looking for firearms – people’s tents were ripped open and broken and multiple refugees told us that they had to source new blankets, quilts, sleeping bags etc. the next day because the Gendarmerie had traipsed their muddy boots all over people’s belongings. It’s important to point out that of the people shot and stabbed in the camp that evening, not one was involved in the fighting, they were refugees in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The night of the shooting we had a young family come and stay with us, they were terrified because the shooters had actually come into their tent to hide just as they had finished cooking dinner. The young family left their uneaten food and when they explained to Gav, who was in the camp making sure everyone was okay, what had happened, Gav offered for them to come and stay with us for the night. I feel blessed to have met such a lovely family, despite the language barrier we managed to laugh over games of cards, play hide and seek with the two young children and even teach each other some Kurdish and English. The daughter who was only 7 taught me colours in Kurdish and drew some beautiful pictures for all of us – she was such a gentle, well-mannered child, as was her younger brother and knowing that you had to send these beautiful young babies back to the camp was so devastating. Because of how close to the shooters in the camp they were, they were too scared to continue living in their tent and asked if they could be moved nearer to the police. It’s so awful that this wonderful young family were put in a position where living next to the police who constantly go out of their way to intimidate refugees was a preferable situation! Over the next two days Jez, who we were staying with, moved the family into a bender at the front of the camp where, despite living in the most awful mud, the family seemed happier.

Whilst I saw some of the most horrific sights I’ve ever seen in my life in the camp, I also saw so much spirit and heart in both refugees and volunteers. Seeing the friendships that have formed between

volunteers and refugees, people’s eagerness to help one another and the generosity that is so widespread in the camp has been such a beautiful experience. Kirsty and I were always offered the opportunity to sit down, drink tea and share food with people we’d never even spoken to and I think that’s one thing that made it so difficult to leave – knowing that you’re leaving some of the most generous, beautiful people you’ve ever met in the most appalling conditions.

Jess Tasney.

03/02/2016

Lou's reflection from Dunkirk

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.

Account of a week in Grand Synthe

This week People in Motion had a group of volunteers travel to France and spend a week at the Grand Synthe camp. Conditions continue to worsen here as the cold and the rain destroy the camp. People are living in tents in water logged, muddy field.

We week started off with Elaine, Lulu, Mel and Orly travelling down alongside Natalie, Doug and reporter Anu Sharma. The group started the week with the distribution of our 'dignity bags' which were packed with warm clothing and essentials for women and children. During the week they worked incredibly hard helping new families coming into the camp to set up their 'home', handing out Gas and other much needed supplies and providing emotional support to the women there.

Here are a few updates from throughout the week:

Mel:

Been in Dunkirk camp all day today. What a day.

I can honestly say the people in the camp I have encountered are the most beautiful, kindest, wonderful human beings I've ever met. They have nothing but are so grateful and welcoming and loving. 

A new family turned up, a mother and 3 children, one of which was an 8 month old baby. The night before they had slept on the streets after travelling on foot for 20 days to escape war. The mother was at one point kneeling down in the mud breastfeeding her baby. We had to cut back a few branches from a tree to make room for their tent which we helped them put up.
After that, we helped set up another tent for new arrivals before sitting and spending time with people.
I am completely overwhelmed. I don't know what to say. These beautiful human beings have blown my mind with their determination and their courage against the odds.

Very sad day today. We got to camp this morning with the intention of distributing dignity packs. As we got out of the car, we realised how bitterly cold it was and another volunteer approached us saying children everywhere in camp were crying as they were so cold and people were ill. We decided then to go looking for camping heaters as this is what is most required. We spent hours trying to find somewhere before eventually deciding to settle on finding gas for heat and bought 140 cans. We took these back to camp to distribute to families. We went deep into camp and the conditions families are living in are horrific. But they still manage to smile and want to welcome us into the little they have. We met a beautiful collection of families with young children doing their best with what they have, playing with and loving their children constantly. Despite the fact they are living in sh*t and mud.
We met so many people through the day dithering in the cold, ill, one guy had an abscess, his face was swollen and he was clearly in so much pain.
Something nice to say, there were a group singing and making music to entertain themselves. They signaled for us to join and dance with them, so we did. They were so happy we joined them. Highlight of the day.
This place really has changed me as a person.
All of us have cried tonight through total disbelief, frustration and sorrow.
I cannot express how beautiful these people and children are in words. 

Lulu:
So if it wasn't for this amazing organisation. I wouldn't be knee deep in rubbish, mud, human faeces. I wouldn't be seeing children shivering in temperatures below 0 degrees. People begging me for candles and gas and clothing. I wouldn't have met beautiful people who, even though they have left the worst conditions any of us could ever imagine, they've walked for days and days and days to get to France. To live in a tent with little shelter, no heat, no comfort, no sanitary protection, no clean water. The children in camp were crying today. They haven't slept because it was so cold last night. To see a man look me in the eyes with such pain and sadness because he has an abscess but we can't get him to a dentist. I can't even explain how much it hurt me. We distributed gas today after going on a massive adventure to get it. We walked through the mud and filth to try and get it to families. When a little boys eyes bright up and shout "we got gas" to be so grateful for something that cost only €2. To be invited into a families "home" sat on a mattress huddled around a tiny fire to keep warm. So generous and so grateful for a can of gas. The little boy sang to me. I asked if they wanted anything tomorrow. They asked for cooking oil and bubbles for the children. Nothing else. Today has been physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically exhausting. But in it I see the little bit of hope these people and I am grateful for the support off my friends and family. But especially Mel and Elaine, Without these two it would be a million times worse. Please I do not want to beg but, if these proud people fleeing war torn countries people who are pharmacists, doctors, teachers, brothers, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters can ask me for a €2 can of gas. Surely you can help by giving just a little? We need more gas and more candles.

Elaine:
Minus 3 today in camp. Frozen mud. Frozen rubbish. Frozen families. Frozen babies worn out from a sleepless night crying with the cold. So cruel. We tried to buy heaters in a desperate attempt to warm people but couldn't t source. We settled for distributing gas to families. Tonight minus 6. God protect these people. They need it.

Mel:

Another emotional day in Dunkirk camp. We visited a family with young children we met yesterday with donations. The temperature was -3 and the children had no dry socks for today before we got there. In the pictures attached is one of the beautiful children. A gorgeous little boy. His father was very upset and showed his boy's pillow which he was sleeping on which was frozen solid. The whole family were very upset and desperate, more for the sake of their children than themselves. Heartbreaking.

We then met a large group of families living together young children and three of the women were pregnant, one expectant mother very poorly with a cold. They were so desperately sad and in need of more clothing. They followed us to the car and another volunteer's van and and were given what we had. Pictured below.

The camp was covered in ice, mud and faeces. We met many people who appeared very defeated, struggling with the weather conditions. 

Last night a 2 month old baby went to hospital with hypothermia. 

We set off this afternoon to get supplies we were short of from Calais. En route back to Dunkirk we found a caravan shop and bought two mini camp heaters which we took straight to both sets of families we met this morning. They were so incredibly grateful it was unreal. I wish I could capture that emotion in words. 

I keep crying because I really do love them so much. We all do.

Elaine:

Just got ourselves caught up in a situation in calais miles from camp. Saw a boy about 10 tear gassed . His father bought him to us for help at which point the gas was everywhere. Rubber bullets flying. Bit shook up. What a mess. This is only gonna get worse if the world continues to ignore these people's plight

We though we had seen and heard it all. But nothing prepared us for what we have just seen. We met a woman on her own no husband with two children a 3 year old with down syndrome and a 14 year old girl with learning difficulties. She carried him all the way here after fleeing Iraq. My words have left me. The woman sat and sobbed with us. The three of us are for lack of better words. totally shell shocked

Lulu:

What a difference a week makes. As we head back to England we are physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. The words don't come easy anymore. I am truly broken. Every single part of me hurts. But when I am broken, I only rebuild myself and get stronger. The scenes I have witnessed this week will never leave me. Each day was filled with such sadness and horror. What you see on the news is nothing compared to what it is really like. The smell, the taste, the touch will always linger. I am in a very bitter sweet place right now. Bitter to leave but sweet with the knowing we made a difference and we will carry on making a difference. If 1 and 1 and 50 make a million, then I hope like I always do that WE can make the change. To Mel and Elaine, I cannot express in words how grateful I am to have started this journey with you. To everyone who has supported from the UK. Thank you.

Photos provided by Anu Sharma, Lulu, Mel and Elaine