Support most vulnerable & fight against isolation

1. Context

Exiles in Calais

Since the mid-1990s, the city of Calais and its suburbs (France) attract a significant number of exiles who try to cross the Channel to reach Britain. While the country stays out agreements on the free circulation of people within the European Union, the exiles cannot cross the border and are stranded in Calais. Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese, Syrians, Kurds, Eritreans: men, women - and children - have been passing through Calais for twenty years now. The vast majority of them, fleeing war or repression, report to a need for international protection : they are refugees that France, the UK and all EU states committed to protect when they signed in 1951, the Geneva Convention on refugees.
The places in which people organized themselves were successively dismantled by the authorities without proposing any solution and aggravate their health and financial situation.

A daily support

Committed for over 10 years with exiles from Calais, Secours Catholique proposes actions to help people who pass the door of their day care :
- A shower is offered so that the exiles can groom
- A cloakroom is available
- Foreign language courses French are offered
- Support in particular with the administrative procedures for immigration

A dramatic and unprecedented situation

3 000 exiles now live in an old wild landfill on a municipal land in Calais. In late March, under the governement's pressure, these migrants were forced to settle on a "moor" devoid of any furnishings, near Jules Ferry's center. This day care, opened in March 2015 for 1 000-1 500 people, is already saturated.

The living conditions of these people on the new "authorized jungle" are absolutely unprecedented in Europe, not even complying with UN standards (UNHCR and WHO) : insufficient access to drinking water (30 taps), almost no accessible toilets (20 per 3 000 persons), insufficient food, inadequate access to care.

The worsening situation has increased tensions and vulnerability of people. Faced with this exceptional situation, four emergency humanitarian NGOs have had no choice but to implement their skills and logistical resources usually reserved for war or disaster situations, to rescue these men, these women and children and bring governments to their responsibilities :

• Doctors of the World France is rolling out mobile clinics to provide medical consultations. Listening and counseling activities are also implemented.
• Solidarités International is distributing hygiene kits to all the people of the camp, as well as containers for drinking water. Their teams build sanitary facilities, shower areas and toilets compounds.
• Secours Catholique-Caritas France has dispatched a team of volunteers from its Emergency branch, in addition of local volunteers to provide resources and build shelters with the exiles, community kitchens and other amenities on the slum.
• The French Islamic Relief is distributing food parcels.

Since the beginning of the year € 95,000 were spent to help migrants of Calais.

In this context, the bicyle workshop is at the same time, a way to provide a complementary solution to the major material difficulties faced by exiles and a way to give them more autonomy.

2. The bicycle workshop project

Goals
The population of the exiles was "installed" on a tolerated area on the outskirts of the city. People are 1h30 walk from all the services they need to access (day care, debit domiciliation, branch of the French Office for Immigration and Integration, internet access for contact with relatives...). The bicycle can overcome these challenges in a way that contributes to the improvement of extremely precarious living conditions.
The project is also intended that the exiles themselves are organizers and repairers within the workshop. In the spirit of Catholic Relief accompanied persons are acting project thus helps to restore their autonomy.

Operation
The workshop started in May under the impulse of a group of volunteers. It is settled in the yard of a building used by Secours Catholique as a day care and is open to the public on Mondays and Thursdays, a day or two more being spent on retyping old bicycles to give to them to the exiles in need.
The mechanics are trained exiles (7 have already been trained so far) in exchange for a presence commitment for two months.
30-40 exiled cyclists benefit from the opening days of the workshop services and fifty bicycles have already been distributed (for about 300-400 bikes present in the camp).

Needs
The workshop is forced to move due to 2 to 3 months and must be improved to face growing demand and bicycle repairs. It is therefore to establish a courtyard where the workshop will take place and a place to store parts and tools.

Operating costs of the workshop : € 2,000 per year.

The installation of the playground and place of storage is estimated at € 15,000.

Links:

• Organization of the humanitarian aid
• How to support the exiles
• 10 years of comittment with the exiles in Calais

• Testimonies of exiles (PDF)
  
• 20151008_Nos actions a Calais (PDF)