QVA helps Calais refugees
Quaker Voluntary Action does a 'dry run' for a Calais working retreat
A member of Quaker Voluntary Action (QVA) spent two days in Calais this month volunteering for refugees.
Hannah Brock, working retreats coordinator for QVA, worked at the Help Refugee Warehouse on 8 and 9 March distributing clothing, tents and sleeping bags. She told the Friend that the trip was ‘sobering’: ‘We went to various points as there are no permanent camps as such. People get evicted from where they are and taken from place to place by the police. It was freezing and rainy but I was able to go back to my warm youth hostel whereas they were in tents outside. There was not a lot of hope. People were trying to get to the UK and someone was killed – they’d been crushed by pallets on a truck – so we held a vigil.’
The trip was a ‘dry run’ for the QVA Calais working retreat in July. Hannah Brock said that there were so many applicants, QVA is now planning to run another retreat in winter.
She added: ‘Life is made very hard for the refugees by the police so we’re trying to counter it in some way. There’s also the question of what they are coming to in the UK, in terms of the hostile environment, so I know that many Quakers are trying to change government policy as well, particularly an end to indefinite detention.’
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