Refugee Children Welcome by Tess Berry-Hart

As Miriam Halahmy writes so movingly in yesterday's article, the Kindertransport of 1939 brought around 10,000 unaccompanied children, mainly Jewish, to the UK to escape persecution. Five days after the Kristallnacht of 1938, a bill was presented to Parliament by a coalition of Jewish and other religious groups, asking for unaccompanied children from babies up until age 17 to be admitted as a matter of urgency. A few days later there was a debate in Parliament about accepting refugees, and a number of grassroots organisations - notably the Refugee Children's Movement - offered assistance in finding homes for them. An appeal put out on the BBC brought in 500 fostering offers in one day.

Meeting Lord Dubs at Parliament, April 2016

This year, we have seen history play out once again as Lord Alfred Dubs - himself a child of the Kindertransport - tabled an amendment to the 2015 Immigration Bill by to allow 3,000 unaccompanied children into the country from camps across Europe. Unbelievably in this day and age, children as young as 12 can travel without an adult from their home countries in search of safety. Despite scepticism from the UK Government, many volunteers such as myself have met groups of children in the camps, and a monthly census carried out by L'Auberge des Migrantes/ Help Refugees shows over 400 unaccompanied children still in the camp.

With UK political will at an all-time low in late 2015 to address the crisis in Calais and other refugee camps, this "Dubs Amendment" was seen as a way to enshrine in primary legislation the UK's responsibilities to take a portion of the unaccompanied child refugees in Europe. I volunteer with Calais Action (a front-line refugee aid and advocacy group) which campaigned for the Dubs Amendment by attending meetings and focus groups in the Lords and the Commons, raising awareness of dangerous conditions faced by child refugees in Europe and encouraging petitions and letter-writing to MPs. 

Photo taken by and (c) of Ahmed, unaccompanied child,
 12 years old, Calais Jungle

I met Lord Dubs along with Rabbi Harry Jacobi also of the Kindertransport, at Parliament during a cross-party panel on refugees shortly before the Dubs vote. Two Syrian boys and one Afghan boy had just arrived in the UK (via the Citizens UK legal official reunification strategy) and told their stories in front of a panel including Yvette Cooper, Heidi Allen, Dubs and Jacobi. They had all escaped from conflict in their countries and faced danger during the journey. One had seen a fellow refugee die at the hands of the police, others had the smuggler boat from Turkey sink beneath them during the passage. When asked to be in future when they grew up, they named doctor, politician and "good person" as their aspirations.

"Thank you for doing this," I said rather lamely to Dubs as we shook hands. (I couldn't think of anything cleverer to say.) Dubs looked nonplussed. "Well it was the very least I could do, for those poor children. You really don't have to thank me."

Plaque opposite the stairs to the Commons Public Gallery

A few days later, I watched from the public gallery with the Calais Action team, as the Dubs Amendment was debated upon in the Commons. Despite moving and emotional speeches, when the division bell sounded, the Amendment was defeated by just 18 votes. Our team were in tears, and as we left the gallery, at the foot of the stairs we saw a plaque commemorating the Kindertransport of 1939.

Drowning our sorrows in a pub opposite Parliament, we put up a post urgently asking everyone to tweet their MPs to express their dismay over the Dubs Amendment. The post racked up over 2,000 reactions and was shared 3,500 times. Over the next few days we shared a template letter and a list of the MPs who voted against the Amendment. Thousands of people signed our petition and hundreds of grassroots groups signed our open letter to the House of Commons. Many more groups started their own petitions and badgered their MPs and central government, while media commentary started to become more positive.

No, you're not seeing things, Honest

A couple of days later, Dubs came back with another amendment that omitted the reference to "3,000" children - thus putting the onus on local councils as to how many they could settle. Huge public and media pressure - even the Daily Mail astonishingly voiced its support for taking in child refugees in limited terms - forced the Government to concede, and after strongly protesting their opposition to the Amendment on the Monday, both David Cameron and Theresa May had capitulated days later. Accordingly, when it was re-voted on in the Commons, it passed with a majority and became UK law as the Immigration Act 2016.

This is indeed wonderful news, and the hope is that many child refugees will be saved from falling through the cracks in Europe - but the real danger is, as Tim Farron pointed out in the Commons debate, the clock is ticking. There is the fear that nothing will be done, that the project will be left to fail and children left in camps in Europe. This is why it's up to ALL of us to pressure both our MPs AND our local councils to accept five unaccompanied children (if every constituency did this we would have the original 3,000). The letter of the law is no good if it has no teeth, and the UK Government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to fulfil even an iota of its humanitarian obligations.

This is where YOU come into play! In the same way that in 1939, a huge amount of public support came from grassroots organisations, we have to do likewise. The people to people grassroots aid movement is perhaps the Internet's finest hour, and makes every cute kitten or selfie dinner pic worth while.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

In camp

Unaccompanied minors in France, Italy and Greece can be potentially given a safe and legal route to asylum under the Dubs Amendment.

If you're a volunteer concerned about child refugees you have encountered, make sure they are on the radar of organisations on the ground - in Calais, make sure that the Women & Children's Centre, Baloo's Youth Centre or Help Refugees/ L'Auberge des migrantes are aware of them - provide their name, age, phone number shelter number.

In Italy or Greece, bring the children to the attention of staff working for Save the Children in bases on the ground with full name and phone number. [Yes - many refugees have phones: they need them]

In UK

Within the UK, you'd like to help admit unaccompanied child refugees into your borough - or help foster, find school places, and other support systems - you need to start with your local MP and councillors. You will be asking them to perform different functions - your MP should be asked to champion the cause and lobby central government for a decent enough financial package to make the project viable. A lot of councils find the funding requirements daunting, so your MP will need to bat for decent funding and ask continuing questions in the House about the project. Your councillors will be doing the nitty gritty of housing refugee children on a limited budget, and  you can offer your help by making them aware of grassroots initiatives, foster care applicants, supportive schools etc in  your area.

The main thing to make clear is that many of these children will be extremely traumatised - they may have seen their family or friends killed, and travelled through great dangers, so they will need extensive psychological support, and cannot simply be plonked down into rural England and expected to get on with it. They will need to build relationships of trust that make them understand that they are safe - sadly around 500 children entering the UK as refugees last year simply disappeared from the foster care system. Asking local psychological support organisations if they can provide pro-bono support, as well as councils, is essential.

If you don't know where to start, you can connect with these groups: Home for Good, Citizens UK, or the numerous Refugees Welcome facebook groups, Rooms for Refugees and People Solidarity pages and groups on the Internet for suggestions and ideas.

None of this historic "Dubs U-Turn" would ever have happened without a massive amount of people power. Let's use it again.

TEMPLATES

(1) FOR COUNCILLORS

Bear in mind that not all councils will be supportive, so research your council's likely approach as to their prior history. Kent, Hillingdon and Croydon have already taken a large number of unaccompanied children, so you may need to flatter them as to their humanitarian work, and ask them to share their experience with other boroughs. The funding system is also very labyrinthine and concerns many councils, so reassure them that you are pressing your MP for a generous financial package - previous financial allocations have not been sufficient.

Dear [name of councillors]

I am a [ -voting] constituent, and I am concerned about the refugee crisis [add your involvement here - whether collecting, fundraising, campaigning or concerned citizen etc].

I am delighted that the Dubs Amendment to allow unaccompanied child refugees from Greece, Italy and France has been passed in the Commons on Monday 9th May, and now the Immigration Act has become law the onus will shift to local councils to decide how many children they can accommodate.
[Thank you for your efforts in resettling [    ] children last year [if appropriate] and giving very traumatised children safety in the UK.

The Dubs Amendment provides an extraordinary opportunity for you to give child refugees in Europe a safe and legal route to asylum [you may need to add in some census facts here]. I would like to ask you to sign up to resettle at least 5 minors over the next year (which if every constituency did would mean 3,000 country wide).

This may seem like a huge task, but I could support you to make it viable by:

a) helping recruit potential foster carers,
b) helping identify potential language coaches and mentors,
c) helping identify schools, GP practices, and psychological support services willing to help, and
d) by demonstrating strong levels of public support

Please know that I am also contacting our MP [name] in order to ask [her/ him] to lobby central government for a generous enough aid package to make this project viable - previous financial offers to house child refugees arriving in the UK have often proved insufficient and set councils up to fail.

I know that the mechanism to identify and process minors from the camps is still being crunched in Parliament, but I would like to place myself on your radar to make you aware of the extraordinary grassroots support throughout London that exists for these child refugees from the camps.

If you would like, we can meet up to discuss - [availability times]

Yours sincerely ...

2) LETTER TO MP

Dear [name]

I am a [ -voting] constituent, and I am concerned about the refugee crisis [add your involvement here - whether collecting, fundraising, campaigning or concerned citizen etc].

Thank you for voting for the Dubs Amendment/ or

I understand that you did not vote for the Dubs Amendment, but I would like to talk to you about this extraordinary opportunity to give refugee children from camps in Europe a safe and legal route to asylum [you may have to add in some facts and figures from census reports in Calais]

I am delighted that now the Dubs Amendment has become law in the form of the Immigration Act the onus will shift to local councils to decide how many children they can accommodate.

I have already contacted [name of councillors] to make them aware of the extraordinary level of public support on this issue and ask them to resettle at least 5 minors. I have offered to assist by helping recruit potential foster carers,potential language coaches and mentors, schools, GP practices, and support services willing to help.

Please would you be able to help too?

a) Please lobby central government to offer a generous financial
package (there were questions being asked in the House earlier this week) but it's important that the budget allocated does not set up the project to fail. The budget allocated to house unaccompanied children arriving during the last financial year
appeared to be insufficient for many boroughs, and it is important that the financial support being offered makes the project viable.
b) Ask the Government to confirm as soon as possible the mechanism through which children will be identified and processed [add in any knowledge of the camps here]. But the transfer process between countries itself is at present unclear.
c) The Government are saying it will take at least 6 months to get this project started, but if we could get even one child per constituency relocated by the beginning of the school year it would be a huge victory. Please lend your name in support of this.

I would like to come to your constituency office one day to discuss? Do let me know your availability.

Thank you so much for your support on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

[name and details]

**NB** A good background briefing document on how to approach your MP and councillors can be found here: http://www.refugees-welcome.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Meeting-your-MP-A-Guide-.pdf

The Only Way Out? Save 3,000 Children by Tess Berry-Hart

"Afsar held on to the axle beneath the lorry and watched the road rushing beneath him. Above him the huge lorry thundered and rattled with its thirty eight tonnes of French potatoes bound for England packed tightly into the container. For hours Afsar had been clinging underneath it, his fingers frozen and his neck stiff, perilously close to the deadly tarmac only inches away.

"Ninety minutes," the smuggler had told him. "Ninety minutes, and then  you'll be in England. After the ferry, once the lorry stops, you get off, and run."

But the lorry hadn't stopped. It had gone on, and on, and on. Now it was tearing up the motorway at eighty miles per hour. A police car cruised past, its signal screaming. 

Little by little, his fingers started to slip ..."

Boys arrive in  the back of a goods lorry in Dover

I wish I didn't have to write this story as part of my series of books about child refugees, but unfortunately I do (though in my version, Afsar has a happier ending, you'll be pleased to know).

Sadly the stories are already being written for us - they are happening in real life. A few weeks ago, a 17 year old Kurdish teenager called Muhammed Hassan (incorrectly reported as 18) was killed in Oxfordshire after hanging on to the underneath of a lorry for hours. Muhammed had been living in the camp in Dunkirk and had made one final, fatal attempt to reach the UK and relatives living in Manchester. Earlier this year, a 15 year old Afghan boy, Masud, squeezed into the back of a lorry to try and reach his sister in England, and suffocated before he crossed the Channel. A few days ago, a 7 year old Afghan boy, Ahmed, was narrowly saved from a similar fate by texting Liz Clegg, a volunteer who runs the Unofficial Women and Children's Centre in Calais. She had given him a phone for his own safety and topped it up with credit donated by volunteers. "I NEED HELP/ DRIVER NO STOP/ NO OXYGEN IN THE CAR..."

The original text sent by Ahmed to Liz Clegg

The text crossed the Atlantic to Liz Clegg who was at a conference in New York at the time. Police were alerted and Ahmed, together with a friend, were rescued. A happy ending - and yet. Despite the terrible cost to children, our government is still so terrified of increasing any potential "pull factor" for immigration that they are shamefully dragging their feet on addressing the humanitarian policy disaster that exists in the camps in Northern France - at the expense of children's lives.

Unbelievably, of the 651 children in the Calais camp, 423 are unaccompanied minors, meaning that they have travelled from their home countries without a parent or adult figure. During my visits to the camps I have met many unaccompanied children and am always astounded by how much they have experienced in such a short time. Despite half the camp being demolished in March, the North Zone still remains, and over 4,000 people are still crammed in tents there, of which 300 are unaccompanied children. Volunteers are doing their best to look after them, but according to a census carried out by on-the-ground charities L'Auberge des Migrantes and Help Refugees, 129 children have disappeared from the camp since the demolition began in the camp's South Zone.

Where have they gone? I was interviewed by a French paper on this question, and my answer was, as the French authorities have not put any child protection or safeguards into practice, nobody really knows. Some may have managed to jump the lorries or the trains, such as Karim, the 12 year old who disappeared from the camp for days, before being found safe in England after the intervention of journalists and the Children's Commissioner. Others may have fallen into the hands of traffickers, or the prostitution or drug trade. That possible fate is too sickening and dreadful for us to contemplate - but we must, if we are to help other children escape it.

Here's what we can do:

On the 25th April the "Dubs Amendment" to the Immigration Bill will go back to the Commons for a vote. Lord Dubs was one of the thousands of Jewish children brought from the Kindertransport in 1939 from Germany, and he created an amendment to the Immigration Bill to bring 3,000 unaccompanied children FROM EUROPE to England. This amendment was passed in the Lords by a majority of over 100 peers, but now it's going back to the Commons to be voted on by MP's. Winning the vote will involve persuading Conservative MPs to vote with their consciences, rather than their party, or at the very least, to sit on their hands and allow the Dubs amendment to pass.

Despite Tory arguments of "pull factor", these children are ALREADY in Europe, they're already in danger, living in dirty camps or disappearing into the hands of traffickers. 50% of those polled by Save The Children have an STD. (Yes). Europol reports that 10,000 unaccompanied children are suddenly unaccounted for since their arrival in Europe. This is an important moment in history, where we have the power to save 3,000 children's lives. Let's make sure we are standing on the right side of it.


HOW YOU CAN HELP

If you live in a Conservative constituency, please email your MP encouraging them NOT to vote against the Dubs amendment. You can tell them that Europe is NOT a "safe country" - children are at risk of exploitation and trafficking, as evidenced by the high numbers of STD's documented by Save The Children and the disappearances from unofficial camps such as Calais.

You can tell Conservative MPs that the existing systems to try to claim asylum are broken: the Dublin III amendment by which children with relatives in Britain can be reunited is impossible to access without specialist legal help. Of the 150 children with potential actionable cases in the Calais camp, less than 10 have been able to exercise their rights, and then only after months of waiting in a dirty camp and the intervention of pro-bono lawyers. And of the other 200 (still remaining) - they continue to live in unimaginable circumstances, forced to choose between the traffickers and the train tracks.

You can remind Conservative MPs that asylum and immigration are not the same thing. These are children, not economic migrants.

If you live in a constituency which is Labour, Liberal, Green, SNP or otherwise, please email your MP encouraging them to TURN UP AND VOTE for the Dubs amendment.

If you care enough to donate an hour or two of your time, you can always write to or email a Conservative MP without being a constituent - although they will have no requirement to answer you - but you can tell them that this is not a constituency issue, it's a pressing humanitarian issue that needs their consideration. And the sheer volume of emails/ letters thudding into inboxes should help remind MPs that the eyes of the public are upon them. If you'd like more information on how to make your time worth while, please PM me on Facebook.

You can identify your MP here: http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

Please sign the cross-party petition here: http://www.refugeetaskforce.org/

We've got less than two weeks. Let's make them count.

Bulldozing A Lifeline: Hope and Community in the Calais Jungle by Tess Berry-Hart

"Half the camp have a book in their tent and most days our classes are full of students or kids getting used to the routine of school. At night everyone uses the rooms to contact family, make music or just keep warm. They're not just bulldozing wood and plastic. They're bulldozing a lifeline."

Mary Jones, Founder, "Jungle Books"

Music performances at Jungle Books Library, Calais Jungle camp
(Photo: Jungle Books)

A few months ago I blogged about Jungle Books Library in the Calais Jungle when I drove over with a van full of books, clothes and tents collected through the direct-giving volunteer group Calais Action. What I found was thousands of people from many different countries, living in tents on a flooded landfill pit, hemmed in by fences, police brutality and indiscriminate amounts of tear-gas. But what I hadn't been expecting was so many volunteer-built projects springing up in the camp which wanted to give the Jungle's inhabitants more than just the basics for life; these projects wanted to give them hope.

Jungle Books Childrens' Space (Photo: Jungle Books)

What was also remarkable was that these projects were in the most part built by ordinary people - not large NGO's, international charities, or funded organisations (because they are not allowed to operate in Calais by the French Government) - but by people who had come together via Facebook, and self-organised with incredible speed.

As well as Jungle Books, many other grassroots projects grew up and flourished in the camp; two schools, two churches (one of which featured on Songs of Praise), two mosques, the Good Chance Theatre where the Globe performed Hamlet last month, as well as the Women's and Children's Centre, a legal advice centre, and a new youth centre where the hundreds of children between 12 and 18 could go for help, clothes and emotional support. Three kitchens served up to 2,000 meals a day. A measles outbreak was contained by a vaccination centre.

St Michael's Church, Calais Jungle camp

In this way, a whole community was created by refugees and volunteers working together, whether it was building, performing, or planning. Not only volunteer projects, but refugee-run projects sprang up - over 70 restaurants, shops and cafes were built and run by refugees. Some refugees formed new lives in the camp - a caravan was found for a refugee nurse who currently lives in the Jungle giving medical care, whilst other refugees work with the volunteers solely for the benefit of those living in the camp. Art projects are given by visiting volunteers - a participatory photography project, called Welcome to Our Jungle, gave cameras to those living in camp to document their daily experiences and provide a counter-narrative to the refugee crisis. Though nobody disputed that the Jungle could be volatile and dangerous at times, voluntary projects such as these provide an essential place for people to go, to connect, to educate themselves and most importantly to feel human again.

The "Good Chance" Theatre, Calais Jungle

However, a few days ago the local authorities announced that the "southern zone" containing these projects and a large number of homes would be bulldozed, and the inhabitants rehoused in a newly-built container camp. It might sound to some as if France is finally taking charge of the problem, either cleaning up a hotbed of illegal immigration, or providing secure warm accommodation to those living in a muddy pit, depending on your political stance. However the reality is somewhat more complicated than this. The French authorities' modus operandi has been for many months to make the camp as miserable as possible so that people will either not come or not stay. It hasn't worked - because people don't either pass up a place on a smuggler's boat to Greece because they've heard how awful the Jungle is, or travel thousands of miles because they've heard some guys are handing out sleeping bags - and only under extreme international pressure and disapproval have the French authorities created a nearby "container camp" consisting of 125 cargo containers stacked on top of each other (the irony is self-evident).

Area in red marked for destruction, The "container camp"
can be seen as the white square middle right

However, the new containers only contain places for a fraction of the inhabitants of the camp (1500 places for up to 7,000 inhabitants), and the southern zone contains these very projects that so many inhabitants rely on. These will now be bulldozed and there appear to be no plans to replace them - no kitchens or community spaces, libraries, religious centres or schools which are so important for communal living. Not only that, but many of the most vulnerable - unaccompanied children and teenagers - will not be rehoused in the container camp but instead re-distributed around the country, far from the projects which have been providing help and advice, much-needed routine and structure, and the volunteers which have befriended and supported them.

A church in the Calais Jungle is bulldozed
(Photo Credit: Help Refugees)

The authorities say that around 800 people will be affected and moved, but the organisation Help Refugees which runs a warehouse and distribution centre in Calais estimates the figure could be twice that. Furthermore, many of those proposed to be relocated do not trust the French authorities or the French system - too many broken jaws due to police "heavy-handling", indiscriminate firing of tear-gas into the camp when there is no trouble, and reports of turning a blind eye towards far-right gangs who regularly attack the camps inhabitants. Only recently have a few men been arrested for attacking some Iraqis with iron bars, and that in itself was news. This means that many of the inhabitants may not choose to enter the camp (there is a palm-print registration system which some fear will hinder chances of claiming asylum in Britain) but instead flee again and take up residence in other places around the coast, at risk of exposure, lack of resources, and from hostilities by far-right groups.

Nobody is insisting that people remain living in tents in freezing mud. But at the same time, the refugee problem cannot be solved by treating people as statistics. The wholesale destruction and relocation of an arbitrary number of people does not take account of their individual circumstances. The inhabitants of Calais did not arrive all in one go marching in lockstep with the same wishes, rights, or legal entitlements. They are from many different countries and backgrounds. Many of them have family in England, and therefore a valid right under existing EU asylum policy. In January 2016 a landmark case was won by Citizens UK which held that Britain should allow in three Syrian minors and one dependent adult from the camp with relatives in the UK while their cases were examined instead of staying in a icy swamp.

An Afghani family living in the Calais camp
(Photo credit: Welcome To Our Jungle)

This Dublin III reunification policy allows certain nuclear family members to travel to live with relatives in the UK, but in the muddy dirty conditions of the camp, accessing legal advice and confusing online forms is impossible (though the camp was given wifi by grassroots groups and is accessible via Jungle Books). 

At a recent APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) on refugees, MP Yvette Cooper (who visited the camp last year) told us that in the same way a political solution was reached for the asylum station of Sangatte, so too should a political solution be available for Calais. Sangatte was an asylum station set up in northern France and managed by the Red Cross for a few years (1999 - 2002), before the government closed it down. Under a deal managed by the UN, some inhabitants were taken into France, and others with UK relatives into Britain. This put a brake on the speed of illegal immigration for some years, but recently more "jungles" have sprung up from place to place, and been bulldozed, as in 2009, only to spring up again. But this time, the very projects that have created a community and hope are being destroyed.

As Mary Jones, founder of Jungle Books told me upon receiving news of the impending destruction, "Jungle Books has become so much more than a library. It is a space that has grown into a real community hub. Half the camp have a book in their tent and most days all the classes (often 3 or 4 in parallel) are full of students learning French or English, and teenagers and kids getting used to the routine of school. At night everyone uses the rooms to contact families with wifi, to chat, to make music or just keep warm. They are not bulldozing wood and plastic. They are bulldozing a lifeline."

What can I do?

Watch and share this video about the projects of hope created in the Jungle featuring refugees and volunteers alike, called The Lotus Flower.

Sign this petition to French ministers about the destruction of projects of hope in Calais

Email your MEP on this link (make sure it's the European Parliament not your UK MP - they have no power to intervene on this issue) - Calais Action has published an open letter that you can cannibalise although the website does not accept bulk mailouts, there's a button where you can search and mail your MEPs simultaneously.

"Jungle Books" Library in the Calais Camps by Tess Berry-Hart

“Books are universal, aren’t they?” asks Mary Jones, the founder of Jungle Books, with a bright but tired smile. “Everybody can relate to a book.”

We’re standing in Jungle Books, a small makeshift library in the middle of the notorious Calais Jungle refugee camp. It’s been a bad week for everybody here. Torrential rain for days has turned the bleak landfill site into a flooded swamp, there’s been riots caused by police bulldozing tents which have spilled out of the main encampment, in which people were wounded as teargas and rubber bullets were fired. Earlier, the camp was cordoned off by police in riot gear as we attempted to get in off the main overpass bringing boxes of books and clothes, so now we’ve had to slip in the back way, through dripping thickets, tents listing under saturated tarpaulins, and a slippery path of giant, mud-filled craters.

But inside the small, wooden-framed library, built by refugees themselves using tarps stretched over a wooden frame and insulated by spare blankets and duvets, it’s a haven of peace and quiet. Wooden shelves line the walls, stacked with books, papers, lined exercise pads and files. Volumes of books – To Kill A Mocking Bird, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and an anthology of Maupassant short stories to name but three - stand in stacks. It’s also a hive of information. Know Your Asylum Rights! proclaims a small stack of pamphlets on the floor. My Time in Yarl’s Wood reads the title of a pile of self-published books. By the door, a small children’s shelf (there are now almost fifty children in the camp, not counting the many hundreds of young teenagers between 14 and 18 which are classed as “men”) boasts my son’s favourite, The Tiger That Came To Tea amongst other children’s classics.

For a moment, I feel desperately sad. Earlier that day I had met a 12 year old boy who had travelled on his own from Eritrea. It's a different world here, a world in the middle of developed France which could be a war-torn nation in the Middle East or Africa. 

But despite their dreadful circumstances, everyone around me is just getting on with it. A couple of Iranians browse the shelves, flicking through books. An Eritrean asks for help with some papers he is carrying and searches for a phrase book. Another man sits intent at a desk, copying sentences from a school textbook from Arabic into English. I steal a glance at the page. “The red ship is sailing on the blue sea.”

Mary gets to unpacking the boxes of books that have been sent to her. “Oooh! Pashto dictionaries!” she exclaims excitedly. “You’ve no idea how useful these are going to be!”

Staffed entirely by volunteers, as is most of the Calais camp, Jungle Books has become more than a library, it’s become something of a community centre, where people come and ask for the things they need. Many of them come to ask for English lessons or help with papers, or most commonly warm boots or coats – it’s freezing cold in the wind off the coast even though it’s still only September – and seeing people slipping in the mud wearing only socks and flip-flops is a common sight. Some of the boxes we’ve brought in contain boots and padded jackets which Mary will give to the people who have asked for them. She’s constantly sourcing aid for the people that come to her,  – for what good, as she says, are books when people don’t have wood to cook with or shoes to wear?

I step outside to collect the rest of the bags and tents that we’ve brought with us. I’m holding a bag of coats when a woman in a ragged jersey approaches me and asks for one. Instinctively I pull it out and give it to her, but it’s too big; I take it away and rummage for another. Instantly the air is suddenly alive with shouts of “Jacket, jacket!” and people start to run towards me. It’s a tense situation – I’ve only a few coats in the bag which have been earmarked for certain people. What do I do?

Distribution is a constant problem in the camp – in a situation where over three thousand people need warm clothes and food, there’s never a perfect way to distribute aid. Distribution lines will always run out before the last person is helped, and can often disintegrate into jostling and a scrum, as well as forcing people to take the first thing that is on offer, regardless of whether or not it fits properly. The “personal shopping” system whereby volunteers take note of someone needing an item, going away and collecting it personally for them (as with Jungle Books), is better targeted, but labour-intensive and slower going. The “shop” system, whereby a large tent is used to stock a variety of sizes and colours of clothes and boots, and those in need are allowed in a few at a time to choose their preferred size and colour, is another option, but also very labour intensive.  At the same time, too much of the wrong kind of aid (high heeled shoes, etc) is brought in by well-meaning people in guerrilla drops, and left in piles as rubbish. 

Next door they’re building an arts space but the roof is leaking from the incessant rain and a large puddle has formed on the ground. Seeking a place to calm the growing crowd, we quickly secrete the pile of tents and shoes in there for the moment and the jostling dies down. Panic over, but I've learned my lesson about proper distribution.

The industry in the camp – they have built a church, mosques, their own shops, restaurants, a barber’s, and the library - has to be seen to be believed. The dedication of the volunteers too is absolutely remarkable - I ask Mary where she has to get back to, imagining that she lives locally or at the very farthest, in Dover - and am stunned to hear that she lives a long way away in a completely different part of France, so a visit to the camp after work (she's a teacher) takes hundreds of miles in a round trip.

The camp has calmed down now after a tense morning with the police, and night is starting to fall. The browsing Iranians sit at a table and chat with some of the volunteers. I notice that one of them has a broken foot wrapped in a supermarket plastic bag, an injury perhaps caused by trying to jump the train to the UK, a dangerous and life-threatening pursuit, but in a system where asylum can only be claimed once you have entered our borders, a necessary one.. Another man, a Sudanese, enters, yawning. “You’ve been up on the trains all night, haven’t you!” they tease him in English. There's plenty of camaraderie here.

When I leave, they call after me, only half-joking. "Take me with you!" they call. A boy nearly follows me to the car, holding his hands out, his face full of pleading. It's so, so easy to turn the key in the ignition and drive off. It's not easy at all to forget how disgusted and sick it makes me feel, to live in a world where things like this are possible.

Fast forward three weeks since I visited, and Jungle Books has grown apace. The arts space has now been finished and music lessons and poetry nights have taken place. When I speak with Mary by phone today for an update she is upbeat. “We’ve got some laptops in now, with Rosetta Stone installed (language learning) and working on implementing a router for internet. Once we've got internet we can get some more computers with wifi to give people a chance to learn and get information." Since my visit, the arts centre has been re-roofed and insulated, and they have their own Facebook page (Jungle Books Library Calais) Mary is also trying to implement a crowdfunder to develop the arts centre into a safe space for the growing number of kids in the camp, to give them a normal place to be, if only for a time.

A library like any other then - in so many ways - and not like any other too. The amazing amount of work and ingenuity that has gone into making a thriving place to give people hope and dignity can only be applauded. For if Britain one day turned into a war-torn country and we had to make the difficult journey to Europe ourselves, I can only hope that we would demonstrate a shred of the courage and resourcefulness that they already have.

How you can help

If you'd like to help the Jungle Books grow and develop, please help donate to and promote their crowdfunder and follow their Facebook page.

If you'd like to volunteer your time helping out in the Calais camp (general tasks), please register your interest on the online volunteer form  and email calaisaid@gmail.com

If you want to go to the camp with supplies - please don't just turn up and attempt your own distribution which can cause waste and chaos, complete the Calais Aid Warehouse form online first to make sure you have appropriate aid and the date that it will be expected.

If you can't make it to Calais, but would like to help in the UK in the Calais Action warehouse, sorting and loading aid for Calais, Hungary and other refugees further into Europe, please contact me via the Calais Action page or message me on Facebook

The Empathy Map (Part 2) by Tess Berry-Hart

"Is a refugee someone who's had to leave their home?" asked Anna.
"Someone who seeks refuge in another country," said Papa.
"I don't think I'm quite used to being one yet," said Anna.

Extract from When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, by Judith Kerr

When I wrote the first part of The Empathy Map last month about how big business has turned empathy into a tool for selling, I'd planned a very different type of post for my Part 2.

Back then it was the middle of August, and all over Europe the biggest exodus of people from their native lands since World War II was under way. Pictures of desperate and frightened people, travelling for months and months overland in terrible conditions, were filtering through Facebook feeds. Boatloads of starving and fleeing people arrived in the beautiful Greek islands, narrowly avoiding being drowned on the way whilst Western holidaymakers reclined on the beach or complained about the view. MIGRANTS STORM CALAIS! shouted the tabloids. David Cameron talked about building a wall. Macedonia was actually building a wall. The word "refugee" was barely mentioned. Empathy was in short supply.

Along with many people, I felt so upset about the coverage and the political inertia that I got in touch with Libby Freeman, a grass-roots activist who had loaded up a van with much-needed supplies and driven over to Calais with a few friends the week before. "How can I help?" I texted her. "I'm planning to get a load of people and supplies together and go over again next month," she texted back. "Great! I'm in," I replied, before I had time to think. Libby and her friends had received so many offers of help that they were setting up a Facebook group called Calais Action and were putting out calls to collect clothes and shoes for people in the camps. I became the West London collector for Calais Action, and posted on local community Facebook groups asking for donations. I received some grateful replies and promises. Going to be a busy week, I thought.

Then I went away for the Bank Holiday in Somerset. Phone coverage was patchy, so I switched my phone off and went Facebook-free for a couple of days. When I eventually logged back on, I had nearly 100 new private messages. People were frantically messaging me from all over London - "I'm so glad to see your group! I have clothes! What do you need?" My phone was full of texts, my email rammed. There was even wild talk of rallies in London and Calais to show solidarity with migrants, an initiative unthinkable only a week ago. When I got back home, there was a huge pile of plastic bags on my doorstep, overspilling with clothes and shoes.

What? How!

Then I saw the headlines - and it clicked. In the awful photos of drowned children on a Turkish beach, Britain had found its empathy.

Migrant:A person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.(ODD)

Refugee: A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster

The words we use to describe something are important as they can skew our perception and understanding of a situation. Take the word "migrant" - in the hands of the right-wing press it became loaded and symbolic of a particular menace; a hooded, dark skinned man, probably a member of Isis or some such, camping in Calais and breaking into lorries to come into Britain and steal our jobs and benefits. Words make us see "a migrant" as “the other” – someone who threatens us, threatens our secure livelihoods, because of ... what? The realisation that the world is not as safe as we would like it to be? That if the genetic chips had been spilled any other way then our lives would not be composed of lattes and Netflix and clean roads - and that we might be in their shoes?

When Al Jazeera refused to use the word "migrant" and instead reported on "refugees" it changed the narrative. Everybody knows what refugees are - the word was picked up immediately by much of the media and it triggered reserves of empathy towards people seeking refuge in another country.

But how are we to instil empathy in our children? The second way of building empathy, as I talked about in Part 1 of the Empathy Map, is reading stories. Studies show that children who read novels are more empathetic, quicker to visualise themselves in the shoes of a storybook character. When I was younger, some of my favourite books were about refugees and immigrants. For me the ultimate refugee/ roadtrip novel has to be Watership Down by Richard Adams, one of my favourite stories for children and adults of all time. It's the story of a group of rabbits in Sandleford whose warren is destroyed to build houses. Together they journey over the South Downs to find a new home, encountering on the way many different types of warrens and the fearsome rabbits who populate them. I defy anyone to read it and not feel empathy towards people who have been expelled from their homelands. When they finally find a warren high on the downs that they can call their own, it is a dream of every refugee who has ever travelled. “It’s not really about rabbits!” shout its supporters, and they are absolutely right. You can find similar parallels of refuge and exile in The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

My other childhood favourites were When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, by Judith Kerr, about her own childhood as a refugee travelling across Europe from the Nazis. Goodnight Mister Tom, about the "vacuees" - evacuated children from London during the Second World War making a new life for themselves in the countryside. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is another, about a group of children travelling from bombed-out Warsaw to Berlin to find their parents in the aftermath of Word War II. Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah is a more modern novel about a young boy who is brought to claim asylum in the UK during the 2000/2001 civil war in Eritrea. All of these stories are vastly different - some deal with events long ago, some are about events that have never happened or could happen - but they all contain within them the seeds of empathy that we so badly need.

Indeed, I was so influenced as a child by the ideas of flight and refuge, that the first young-adult novel I ever wrote, Escape From Genopolis, followed the fortunes of a group of refugees in the futuristic world of Genopolis where pain had ceased to exist. Those who still experienced pain were called Naturals and banished to a wilderness because in knowing pain, by extension they still had empathy. In the world of Genopolis, empathy was held as a dangerous gift, because to control people you have to dehumanise them - you must not "understand" them. Words that dehumanise people prevent us from empathising with and helping them; words which foster empathy can change the world.

And the world does appear to be changing from a month ago. Empathy is now front-page news. Libby and her friends have been interviewed by TV and newspapers about the new "grass-roots giving" which refuses to sit back and wait for politicians to take action. And what a powerful force grass-roots movements are. Just two weeks after I set up the West London branch of Calais Action, over four hundred and fifty generous and hard-working people from my local area have either contacted me with donations or volunteered to help collect, sort and pack the giant pile of supplies that I've received - crates upon crates of food, 200 large boxes of clothes and shoes, sleeping bags and tents - which now fill an entire house in a neighbouring square (the house has been also temporarily donated for a week!). This weekend the supplies will be shipped out, to be sent on to refugee camps in Hungary and northern France. A huge rally - "Refugees Welcome" - happened on the weekend in London; another one will happen in the Jungle camp in Calais itself this next Saturday 19th September. A co-ordinated volunteer programme is being set up in Calais by Calais Action and other NGOs and grass-roots groups to repair water pipes, build proper shelter and distribute the vast amount of supplies to the vast amount of people who need them.

Empathy is part of us and what makes us human; we just need to let it flourish.