Calais Light

30 Calaislighters, setting off on our 30th convoy in 8 years (not including the pandemic!) to volunteer with refugee NGOs in Northern France this weekend! Old friends, new friends, their friends. It’s so important to act! Back on Sunday. ⛴️ 🚗 ♥️ NB. Garry missed the group photo 😄 #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees#WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

DRIVERS NEEDED FOR FEBRUARY 2025! 🚘 ⛴️ 🇫🇷 We need drivers for our 31st convoy to Calais! We are desperate for experienced continental drivers to join us on 7-9 February 2025. We are a car sharing convoy and without drivers the convoy cannot go ahead. So if you’re a confident European driver, please sign up today! Christmas is coming and we need to get everyone booked in before the end of the year. Thank you! ❤️ Visit calaislight.com for more details, sign up via the link in our bio or email calaislight@yahoo.com #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees#WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Could you manage without your phone for a day? 📱 How about if you were in a strange country, with no money or shelter? For refugees, a phone is a literal lifeline, one of the only ways they have any independence /family contact. It’s vital if they find themselves lost or moved to an unknown location. But a phone is no good unless it can be regularly charged. Instead of partial charging during distributions, MRS collects personal power banks to charge overnight, as demonstrated by Charlie. Each one is logged and tracked via an app to ensure that it’s handed back to the correct person. A brilliant use of tech! 📱 📞 💡 As part of Convoy 30 next week, ten of us will get to work assisting MRS in Dunkirk. We desperately need your sponsorship so we can support their fantastic work. Head to https://lnkd.in/eEccmkSr to help us raise £5,000 by the end of 2024 💰 #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Day 2 and another fabulous bespoke, well-thought-out service from Mobile Refugee Support! We all have a favourite item of clothing that makes us feel good, a pair of jeans that fit just right, or a jumper that goes with everything 👖 👚 Displaced people on the move, living in tents, without luggage & homes are still people. They have preferences. They are no different to us and it can be hard to keep hold of what few possessions they have, due to constant police evictions, items trashed & thrown into landfill and never knowing where they will have to shift to, day by day. MRS offers refugees in Dunkirk a bespoke laundry service which allows people to keep hold of those few precious items & keep them clean 🧺 As Jed explains, the MRS team collects individuals’ clothes in bags labelled with their name, they take them away to wash and dry in their warehouse and two days later, they return them to its owner. Freshly laundered clothes in two days – what an amazing service! At the end of November, ten Convoy 30 members will head to MRS’ warehouse to help out. Visit our new Sponsorship Hub on our website to encourage & support them with a couple of quid and a nice message ♥️ Sponsor the “whole convoy” - that would be awesome! https://lnkd.in/eEccmkSr #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Ahead of Convoy 30, we are showcasing the services of one of the regular partner NGOs that we will assist this month, Mobile Refugee Support based in Dunkirk. Their humanitarian operation is extremely precise, bespoke and tech-driven, run by three very clever people and a little dog!🐶 One amazing thing they provide for the displaced community in Dunkirk is like a version of Amazon Fresh. Rather than handing out pre-made food packs, guessing what people might want to cook or eat, migrants can request items from MRS they specifically want. If they’ve run out of cooking oil, need baby milk, chickpeas, mushrooms…they can order their shopping via an app and collect it the next day. Voila! 🛒 🍞 🥒 🥚 Not only is this an efficient way of distributing food that avoids wastage, it gives the refugees complete dignity of choice & the ability to cook and serve their own food if they wish. Cultural awareness & sensitivity in action. ❤️💪🏿 We love their personal & individualised approach. ❤️ It’s the opposite of harsh government & media rhetoric about refugees which focuses us on NUMBERS!! Your sponsorship money means Calais Light can help NGOs like MRS, providing emergency grants and other support. Head to https://lnkd.in/eEccmkSr to sponsor Convoy 30 and give a shout out to the team! #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Book your place NOW on Convoy 31 on 7- 9th February 2025! 🇫🇷 🚗 ⛴ ❤️ We can only take 30! Get ahead of your New Year’s Resolution and join us on the first WEEKEND car-sharing convoy of 2025! We need 30 volunteers including experienced CONTINENTAL drivers, with their own cars, to travel to Calais with us and stay for two nights, working with our partner NGOs to help extremely vulnerable people stranded in Northern France. Get organised, sign up now and commit to volunteering in 2025 with us! You can sign up via our website calaislight.com or click the link below #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

So yesterday our Prime Minister said he wants to “smash the people smuggling gangs” with an extra £75m investment. That’s great, right? Well yes, the callous business operations of criminals who are exploiting desperate people’s need to seek sanctuary via Channel crossings must be stopped. And we agree that our broken asylum system needs to be rebuilt & we welcome the news that hundreds of additional asylum caseworkers will be recruited. But Keir Starmer’s plan made absolute ZERO mention of safe passage for asylum seekers and refugees. So what about them? People smuggling gangs do not operate in isolation. Their business exists because of the lack of safe passage. As long as people will need to move around, displaced by war, persecution & major climate events, people will want to enter the UK. And they should be able to do so safely, without making hazardous channel crossings and entrusting their lives to opportunist criminals. By focussing only on “smashing the gangs”, Starmer’s announcement misses the point by a long way. What will happen to those desperate souls once the gangs are “smashed”? What about those people that need to come to the UK to escape unimaginable hardship? Where is their solution? Where is the compassion towards them? The threat of the inhumane Rwanda policy failed as a deterrent. As did the “Stop the boats” campaign pledge of the previous government. In October 5,417 people made the crossing, the highest monthly figure since 2022. Claiming asylum is not illegal under international law and until there is safe passage for those who need it, people will continue to die in the Channel. #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Sponsor 30 Calais Lighters for CL No 30! We’ll be driving to Calais in shared cars with 30 other volunteers from Calais Light on 29th November 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🚗 ⛴️ It will be our 30th weekend convoy. We will probably be standing in the cold and the wet for hours, but we can change clothes in the warmth, grab a shower, change into dry clothes. These luxuries are denied to refugees. Living in tents or & clusters in woods & muddy fields. They don’t know where the next meal is coming from, and the wintry conditions are making their lives brutal & hard. You can encourage us by sponsoring our entire convoy of Calais Lighters and help us to smash our December target of £5,000. Working with established charities on the ground, we help to distribute new tents, boots, winter clothes, and offer a range of services from hot drinks to haircuts. Your cash also helps us provide new, well-fitting clothes in the UK, to teach English & to run a whole series of fun, social inclusion activities that promote a more meaningful & bearable life for refugees in the UK 💛 You don’t have to go to Calais – but you can help our cause!!! Do leave us a nice message on our Sponsorship Page at https://lnkd.in/eEccmkSr #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

Calling all runners! We’ve always dreamed of people fundraising & running for Calais Light 🏃 and until we became a registered charity last January, it remained a dream. Until now! Working with the charity gifting platform, People’s Fundraising, we have put together a brand new Calais Light Fundraising Hub where you can raise money for a specific convo. Matt has raised a fabulous £560 for Convoy 29 by running a half marathon. It’s super easy to do! Matt simply set up his fundraising page, (they provide lots of useful tips), searched for “Calais Light Convoy 29” when choosing which campaign to support, and off he went. The platform automatically created a specific page and link just for him. He used the personal fundraising link which the platform gave him to share his “fundraiser” with friends, family and colleagues in the run up to the half marathon day. And the great news is, you can do it too! This option will be available for all future convoys on peoplesfundraising.com, so what will you commit to? A half marathon like Matt? A full marathon? A 10k fun run? A 5k walk with pals? Every penny of sponsorship helps us help more people in desperate need, in the UK and Northern France. Convoy No 30, the big one, is in a month Nov 29th-Dec 1! Any challenge will do!! #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow

💃Our newest trustee, Tania has been attending evening salsa classes for a few months. She took the plunge and had a chat with the Dance School Owner Nicolas about refugees, Calais Light, our Sept Convoy No. 29 to N.France & our volunteering in the UK. Surprise! He agreed to allow Tania to put a collection box for us at the front of the dance class for the month of October. So far, £95 has been raised and it has allowed Tania to open new conversations with other attendees about the plight of refugees in the UK & France and Calais Light’s activities. Another brilliant example of opening up & using our networks and having conversations to help refugees that we wouldn’t normally have. There’s a couple of days left to have those conversations OR sponsor our latest convoy! You have until 31st October to help us raise £10,000. Final push! We’re nearly there! Tap the link in our bio 👆 or head to https://lnkd.in/e-2kexD5 now If you support us - talk about us & refugees. #RaisingAwareness #ChangingMindsets #SafeRoutesNow #HonourRefugees #WeAreAllTheSame #NoHumanIsIllegal #IntegrationNotSegregation #HumanRights #WithRefugees #HelpRefugees #CalaisLight #RefugeesWelcome #SupportRefugees #NotForProfit #Grassroots #VolunteeringMatters #VolunteeringNow