Page 64 - Phonebox Magazine November 2015

Olney Aid - to the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp
It started with one man in Olney being so moved by the plight of migrants in Calais and ended up with eight people travelling to France to hand out a truck load of donations, including clothes, tents, blankets and toiletries, that were
donated by the people of Olney and the surrounding area. John van Weenen, a veteran in aid work first approached Souls of Olney for a pickup point, Wards of Olney for manpower and a truck and the Phonebox Magazine for media support and a photographer. In a very short time after starting his campaign, his efforts came to fruition.
Joined by Karate students Tim Haskell, Mansel van Weenen, Stephen Aldred and Luke Radwell with the help of Phonebox Magazine, a call was put out for certain items that were required by the refugees in the camp.
Souls of Olney allowed an area to be used for contributors to drop off items that were stored in a Wards of Olney truck on the weekend before the team left for Calais.
The parking and ferry were booked from Dover for Calais for two cars and six people and the channel tunnel for two drivers and a truck. Calais was our destination.
Once in Calais we were met by a volunteer from one of the grassroots charities working on the ground that John had been discussing things with about the best way to organize distribution. Claire Mazlin (Les L’Auberge Immigrants) from the Wirral in Liverpool, had spent several weeks helping out, and then had a week back in England before returning for another long spell at the charity’s distribution centre.
First off was a visit to their warehouse, where we unloaded certain items that they could organise and distribute later to those needing them most urgently. Then with a lorry still almost full of mixed items packed into boxes we headed for the camp, to a sand-duned area known as ‘the beach’, in the centre of the ‘Jungle’ camp.
Our truck pulled up, we opened up the back doors and an orderly line of refugees formed, reaching over 100 yards, in a very short time. With everybody helping out it still took some time to distribute the donations. There must have been over 500 needing food and clothing in our line.
John, who has organised aid missions before to the Balkans, shared his views on the situation.
“It was eye-opening to say the least – we saw the world on a sand-dune. Everyone had heartbreaking stories as to why they were there.”
He and the other team members wanted to see the crisis at first hand, and all wrote about their thoughts on the experience. He said: “I was aware of the situation, but what struck me the most was the scale of it.
If there is a war-torn country in the world, then they were represented in Calais.
They just want to make a life for themselves; they were excited by English culture and had a respect for it. I never expected to find a humanitarian crisis of such scale so close to home. With thousands of people struggling to survive in a wasteland of tarpaulin shacks and crumpled tents, the Calais refugee camp is certainly not a reflection of normal European life. The stories I heard as we distributed aid all followed a similar theme: fleeing war-torn countries, and wanting education and stability.
They had sometimes trekked thousands of miles, often through treacherous conditions, just for a glimpse of the border
64 Phonebox Magazine