INTO THE JUNGLE
One hundred metres into the refugee camp, I might have still
felt frightened if it hadn’t been for a single, seemingly insignificant human
act. It was something that Amy did. She lifted her smile to the curious,
muttering groups of men and she called out “Hello!”
And with that – and a quick shot of self-reflection - I
realised that the first strides of my journey into Calais’s stony, weed-ridden “Jungle”
camp had seen me resort to the ridiculous pretence that people exhibit in the
high street when a stranger approaches them for spare change. The old
“I-can’t-see-or-hear-you-and-I’m-too-deep-in-thought-or-conversation-to-notice-you”
performance… I’d been keeping my eyes
fixed ahead as refugees turned to stare or call out to us. And then I looked at
Amy who, having visited the camp many times before with the Derbyshire Refugee
Solidarity, was leading our little party of four through the dust and debris
on the hottest day of the year. She was turning to meet each playful call with
a smile and a genuine greeting.
* *
* * * *
In that moment, I realised that Amy wasn’t seeing a
stranded, desolate crowd of thousands. Instead, she was seeing thousands of
individual stories. As I began to emulate Amy’s behaviour, I looked into faces
that were understandably inquisitive: why was this European woman here amongst
the maze of tents? Why hadn’t she stayed beyond the metal fences that tower at
the edge of the camp like a mob of barbed wire bouncers? Was she another
tourist come to indulge her own curiosity? And now each of the refugees’
spirited “hello”s was a spotlight swivelling to turn and shine on another
unique narrative of flight and affliction.
As I met and chatted with residents of the Calais and
Dunkirk refugee camps over the next couple of days, I realised how easy it
would be to just stick with FEAR. – To
take a glance or two at this encampment of unfamiliar “otherness” gathering on
Dover’s doorstep and to scuttle away, coughing up alarm and suspicion with true
Daily Mail swagger.
So let’s
address the first of our sticky, uncomfortable points that inevitably emerge
when we listen to people discussing the Calais refugee camp…
FIRST STICKY POINT:
Where are their bare feet and rags?!... I'd feel more comfortable if they were wearing rags! ~ Anon.
When I told various people that I was visiting the refugee
camps with The World Wide Education Project to see if we could help develop the
education provision for children there, I became audience to a number of
questions and musings . Often these pontifications started with, “Hmmm, it’s an
awful situation isn’t it… But [uncomfortable cough]…what I don’t understand
is…” One recurring theme that followed on from these tentative starts seemed to
be rooted in a deep desire to see the refugees as penniless and uneducated, ignorant
of technology and having somehow lived their previous lives in a primitive bubble
– before downgrading only slightly to tarpaulin and pop-up tents.
“How come they all have mobile phones?” a group of (perfectly
nice) Year 8 boys asked me. “If they’re so poor and we’re supposed to feel
sorry for them, why are there pictures online of them all stood in designer
clothes with iphones?”
It’s true that if these privileged, British schoolboys had ventured into the “Jungle” themselves in the hopes of finding the bare-footed, swollen-bellied toddlers that we expect to see in charity campaigns, their search would have been a disappointing one. The fact that amongst the refugees there are former business owners, teachers and tradespeople who have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety, completely challenges our agreed picture of what constitutes “people in need”. If tomorrow you had to flee from your home – perhaps to escape terrorism – what’s the one thing you’d take with you? Those Year 8 boys of course immediately declared that it would be their mobile phones. And a charger. (Closely followed by a spare set of clothes!)
MISSING CHILDREN, TEARGAS AND THE BEST BOYBAND EVER
Once
inside the camp we met up with some of the people who are working hard to
provide an education for refugee children. Some of these children have now
missed out not on months but years of
schooling. As I write this, a recent census conducted by charitable
organisations shows that there are now 761 children living in the Calais
refugee camp. Whilst that figure in itself is shocking, there is an even darker
element to the situation: of those children, 608 are in the camp alone. Without mum, dad, or any responsible
family member. And did you know that 178 of those children have the right to be
reunited with family members in the UK? But they’re simply stranded and
isolated…
When
I found out that the youngest child in the camp is just 7 years old, my
thoughts obviously turned to my own 7-year-old son. My sweet, sensitive,
trusting little boy. The thought of him lost, terrified and confused in this
new land of strangers where comfort, certainty and reassurance are scarce, was just
too heart-breaking to contemplate. When night falls on the “Jungle”, the camp
is submerged in total darkness. No electricity: no light.
As
I reflected on how easy it had been to enter the camp – no official entrance,
no checking in or out – the horrifying reality dawned on me: how easy it would
be for any of these hundreds of unaccounted-for children to be led away from
their temporary community by a complete stranger. Calais has not introduced a
system to count them, nor to note their names or their whereabouts. When the
French authorities dismantled hundreds of homes in March this year, firing
teargas canisters that apparently set makeshift shelters alight, a shocking 129 children apparently ‘disappeared’ during the chaos that
ensued.
* *
* * *
* * * *
When
I first met Fergal and Ciaran – two Irish
volunteers for the Refugee Youth Service (RYS) and
key people in the setting up of provision for children in the camp - I was
struck by how young they were. At first greeting, these two incredible
life-changers would have looked more suited to a boyband than a charitable
initiative for refugee youths.
But Fergal and Ciaran were
my second thunderbolt reminder not to judge a situation too quickly.
With
support, these two young men maintain a small classroom, youth centre and psychosocial
cabin to provide education, safety and well-being to the refugee children. More
significant perhaps, is the fact that through liaison with Les Medecins Sans
Frontieres
- the only organisation to have a legal and authorised presence on the land – the
RYS have managed to place the school under its protection. Safe-guarded officially,
now, from eviction, their little sanctuary is the only other set of temporary
buildings that can legally resist the French authorities when they inevitably
come to dismantle homes and bulldoze communities for a second time this year.
In
fact, on this first day that I visited the “Jungle” there was a tense
atmosphere crawling through its well-trodden pathways. The ominous and
unusually heightened presence of the French Riot Police lingered at the edges
of the camp. The officers were beginning their first phase of the next mass
eviction, predicted to happen at the end of September this year. Today they
were closing down the little make-shift shops and cafes set up from tents and
huts by refugees to serve their own community. It is, of course, of central
importance to the French authorities that the “Jungle” is not accorded official
refugee camp status. If it becomes recognised as a legitimate camp, then the
authorities would become more accountable for the welfare of the unaccompanied
children living there. Apparently, they would be required to allow powerful
organisations such as Save the Children and Unicef to set up aid in the
vicinity and assist on a significant scale. To keep the refugee camp’s status as
“not officially existing” , the police are required to periodically oversee the
bulldozing of the camp in the hopes that the refugees will disperse to…well,
somewhere else…
I
heard chilling tales of the police confiscating food from the refugees – even
from a hut set up by a British woman to provide warm meals to unaccompanied children.
During the seizing of provisions, the officers allegedly scooped
ready-to-be-served cooked rice out of barrels and dumped it into binbags; and
confiscated bottles of safe drinking water which they then proceeded to
drink themselves.
THE SCHOOL AND A CRY FOR HELP
The
classroom run by the RYS is a small porta-cabin – a bit like one I had my A Level
lessons in, only less than half the size. There are seats for 9 children, and
as the kids – all of them teenage boys – arrived for a maths lesson, I felt
awkward about my own presence taking up some of their precious learning space.
Outside
the cabin it was 30 degrees; inside only slightly cooler. These boys had turned
up in the sweltering heat to attend school out
of choice. As I watched the teachers
greet the kids, it became obvious that the promise of new learning was not the
only lure. Each boy was met by the adults with an effusive and genuinely
friendly greeting. This simple expression of positive regard would perhaps feel
like an entitlement to British schoolkids, but to these youngsters it was
everything. It was a validation to these children that they were important;
that they mattered; that they still had the right to a place in this terrifying,
lonely world.
As
the lesson progressed, more children turned up to stand in the doorway, unable
to participate for lack of space but craning their necks through the gap in
order to listen to the teacher and attempt to learn something. One boy had
turned up with swollen eyes, red and streaming from being caught in the police
teargas; rubbing his stinging face but still ready and anxious to learn.
The
challenges presented by this maths lesson constituted every teacher’s
nightmare. If you’ve ever taught a class, you’ll know what I mean. The kids
spoke different languages from eachother,
they were all at different stages of mathematical understanding, most of
them had very little English, and because of the lack of space, the teachers
had encountered different kids for each of the previous lessons, so were struggling
to ascertain individual needs and starting points.
At
one end of the room, there hung – of all things – an interactive whiteboard.
Donated by another charity, it hung there like some obscene joke in the
electricity-less community.
These
homeless children were anxious to learn. They followed the teacher’s every
move, eyes anxiously searching the diagrams she pointed to, lips mumbling
sounds in an attempt to repeat the teacher’s foreign words and commit the precious
learning to memory. Yet, reassuringly, beneath their earnest search for
education, and despite their terrifying life experiences, there still lingered a
spark of irrepressible playfulness as they competed to complete the task in winner’s
first place. And that badly concealed delight at receiving a lollipop, that you
see in classes of mischievous Year 10 boys in the UK.
This throws up the second sticky point and popular query…
SECOND STICKY POINT:
Why do they all seem to be male?... What have they DONE with all the females?! ~ Anon.
My neighbour’s take on this question is possibly a fairly
common one. When I mentioned I was going to be visiting the Calais refugee
camp, she spent a good 5 minutes attempting to delicately share her suspicion that
the plethora of male refugees she’d seen in the media had all fled from
disaster and conflict by cowardly surrendering their children and womenfolk to
the hands of villains and then running for the grassy hills of England.
Of course we know that some of the male refugees have had to
flee their homes in order to avoid being forced to fight and die for a cause
they don’t believe in. But in many cases the refugees are the strongest, most
physically resilent members of the family. They are the ones who are charged
with making the perilous journey to the family’s “Land of Hope”; the ones who
are fit enough to risk everything as they conceal themselves in refrigerated
lorries or scale barbed wire fences to find a home and a future for their loved
ones.
Beshwar, a 25-year-old
Kurdish man I met at Dunkirk refugee camp had been sent away from Iraq by his
father when so called “Islamic State” invaded their village. Whilst his father
remained to fight to reclaim the village, Beshwar was called upon to take his
mother and younger brothers to safety. You can read his story here
The census shows that there are girls living in the “Jungle”
too but in much smaller numbers. The RYS are working hard to locate these girls
and ensure that they feel able to attend the school where possible too.
Talking
at length with Fergal and Ciaran, we
learnt about the things they desperately need in order to support the children
in the way they want to. The most obvious issue, of course, is the size of the
current classroom. Enthusiastic kids are already learning not to try showing up
for class because there is rarely enough space for them in the tiny
porta-cabin. As our discussions progressed, the conundrum was how to create
something which would cater for many more youngsters without falling foul of
the strict laws prohibiting “building” on this unofficial camp.
My
friend and colleague, Simon Devine – operational manager for WWEP – was able to
quickly visualize a solution for this and drew up a plan for a spacious, robust
teaching space in weatherproof materials that could be easily dismantled if (when!)
the camp has to relocate again. As well
as building this new provision ,WWEP is hoping to provide teacher training
support, experienced teacher volunteers, psychosocial aid, books and equipment,
special educational needs support, and maybe even school meals.
THE
FINAL DESPERATE NEED IS SOMETHING THAT I NEED TO ASK FOR YOUR HELP WITH…
The teachers have asked if
we can do anything to help them source visual resources that feature
translations in any of the following languages –
Arabic
Dari
Pashto
Oromo
Farsi
Tigrinya
Amharic
Eritrean
Posters would be ideal and
home-made is just fine! We need visuals depicting things such as the colours,
shapes, numbers, common phrases, etc in both English and as many as possible of
the languages above. If you or someone you know speaks one of the languages
above then we would be very grateful for your help and details about how you
(or a whole class or school!) can assist are at the end of this post.
* *
* * *
* * *
Walking
out of the camp and standing sadly under the bridge at the end of the day, I
watched groups of refugees trickling out of the camp. Rucksacks across their
shoulders, eyes fixed straight ahead, they were embarking once more on their
nightly attempt to conceal themselves in some unfamiliar cross-channel bound
vehicle. Some might just succeed, others might die in the attempt, most would
just get returned to the ‘Jungle’ by the French police, ready to try again the
next day.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I
think there’s a final sticky point that readers might still be grappling with,
the biggest burning question of them all…
THIRD STICKY POINT:
Why
don’t they just stay in the first safe country they get to? Why keep heading
for England?! ~ Anon
Each time a refugee asked me where I came from, their
face would light up with an incredible joy when I answered “England”.
“England! England!” one delighted refugee cried and
others quickly came over to join us, staring at Simon and myself as if we were other-worldly beings from a superior
diamond-encrusted planet. “What is England like?!” they asked, eyes shining.
“Tell us about England!” It was enough for these polite, Kurdish people to
simply hear us pronouncing the names of major cities they had heard of in their
fairytales of English life. Watching intently as Simon drew them a quick map of
the UK on a paper napkin, they rolled names like “Manchester” and “Birmingham”
around in their mouths as if the words held some indescribable beauty and
promise. Their fairytale had one desired ending – that they and their families
would live happily ever after in the UK at the end of their long and terrifying
journey.
Ciaran, who has developed a friendship with many of the
residents of the Jungle, has given this third
sticky point a lot of thought. In his brilliant blogpost where he considers the
sanctimonious question, 'Why don't they stay in France or, for that matter, the
first European country they arrived in?' Ciaran describes what he sees to be a
flawed but fundamental human instinct to “play big and win”. This makes
complete sense to me. Can we truly judge another human being for seeking happiness
rather than simply seeking refuge-from-death? I began to think about all the
people I know who have taken a risk in the hopes of getting something “even
better” than survival. The one who risked every penny to set up a business in
the hopes of improving their family’s financial situation. The one who left a
steady, safe relationship in the pursuit of a more exciting, fulfilling one .
The happy, settled couple who took a
leap of faith and adopted a troubled child. The executive who gave up her
6-figure salary so that she could get more family time. The fact is that
perhaps all of those people might have been better accepting their original
“safe place”, but as human beings that’s often not what we do. If I were to
judge those refugees for setting their sights on the UK as their ultimate goal,
then I would need to judge myself for every occasion I’ve invested time,
thought or money into chasing an ideal that was not a necessity, but a dream.
As the blood-red graffiti staining the wall outside the ‘Jungle’ cries out to
passers-by: “We too are human.”
As
I stood under the bridge that marks the gateway between the “Jungle” and
“civilization”, I saw a large tatty sheet
that some of the refugees had pinned up on the mounds of weed-covered earth
beside their tents. They had carefully handwritten a message on it; one that
would probably never be seized on and shared by the media. It read:
"We, the people of 'Calais
Jungle', share our hearts to the people of Nice. We stand with the families of
the victims and support you. Terrorists are our enemies too. We are one family:
French and refugees.
We are so sorry about your loss in
Nice. We feel your grief. We hope that God will help you in your grief.
Any time the French want our
support, we want to offer it.
Love from Refugees 💞"
Can You Help?
Would
you like to help WWEP give the refugee children the chance of a better life
through access to education? There are two ways that you or your school could
make a huge difference:
1.
Could you organise an exciting fundraising event to raise
money for the Calais Refugee project? We will make sure that your donation
helps to provide essential resources for the school, the children and their
teachers.
2.
Could you produce a high quality visual resource that can be
displayed in the classroom to translate English and French into some of the
refugees’ languages mentioned above?
3.
Could you donate exciting EAL (English as an additional
language) resources that your school has found valuable in helping EAL children
to access key concepts in English? These might be games, guides or equipment.
AND FINALLY... Do you know any brilliant people who would like to apply for the position of Education Co-ordinator or School Manager with the RYS in the Calais Refugee Camp?
Please
get in touch at info@wwep.org.uk We will be so grateful to hear from you!
You
can follow WWEP on Twitter @WWEPUK and Refugee Youth Service on their facebook
page.
