Day 2 – One teacher’s thoughts: I have just returned from a second visit to the Calais camp; having heard that the school is still standing, despite the destruction of huge swathes of the camp, and that teachers were wanted.
From a distance it looked like they are standing in acres of ploughed fields, but when you get closer you can see the remains of people’s possessions – shoes, clothes, toys and tents – the meagre possessions of people who fled their countries with only what they could carry – now bulldozed into the soil.
We heard that the residents had been led to believe that the bulldozing of the camp would happen gradually, but in fact it was done so quickly and brutally that many residents were unable to rescue their belongings, and lost everything.
It is now quite a walk from what remains of the camp to the school, so people are not able to just call in to see what is going on, and few children seem to be making it to the children’s school and play area. However, word went around and soon we had more students than there were chairs for.
People wanted to learn some English and French, and were so keen that many sat there for 4 hours making the most of every minute, then more hours in their tents painstakingly copying out everything they had learned for each other, and were word perfect the next day. (Any colleagues will confirm that you never expect ESOL learners to remember every detail of a lesson, but these students seem to be the exception).
Like last time, it was also a rare pleasure for the teachers – this pared down approach, far away from the trappings of marketization that encroach on so many of our lessons at home –exam preparation, ILPs, embedded numeracy and Prevent – here you can just focus on what is needed and have some fun too. We had a better idea of the conditions this time and brought dome home-made materials that went down very well.
There is now a website where people can share resources, so it feels like things are getting more organised. I was disappointed not to find the young Darfuri refugees that I worked with last time and couldn’t find any news of what had happened to them.
Apparently a lot of people left Calais after the bulldozing, either going to smaller camps in France, such as Dunkirk, or just camping out in the countryside in small groups taking shelter under bridges and in barns, where they must be incredibly vulnerable and also out of easy reach of any kind of support. When talking to people about the future, they seemed more despondent than before.
Some of the residents have decided to make asylum applications in France and other countries, but others, especially those with family in the UK, are still in limbo, waiting for a miracle, and with no easy alternative option to take. We were invited for a cup of tea by some more Darfuri refugees who had been at the school, and it was great to see how they have managed to construct a new living space out of tarpaulins insulated with blankets and other bedding, and a stove made from a bin. They have made a communal kitchen where they share cooking – using whatever they are given by the charities working there.
The resourcefulness and resilience of these young guys – mostly aged mid-teens to mid-twenties is humbling, and makes me reflect on how we can allow this to happen to people the same age as my daughter and her friends, let alone the small children you hear more about on the internet.
Later in the afternoon a group of the refugees managed to block the nearby motorway, stopping the traffic so that others could try to jump into the stationary lorries, but the police were therein force and very quickly – 20 vans of police in riot gear fired teargas at them and they were forced back towards the camp. We were sitting in the classroom and smelled the gas at that distance.
Apparently this kind of thing happens frequently as some of the refugees take increasingly desperate measures to move on. Someone pointed out that with the money being spent on all the security – large parts of Calais resemble a prison camp with miles of long fences and razor wire, the huge police presence at the camp and at all the ports and the stations – it would be much cheaper to bring this fairly small number of people to the UK.
The actual numbers in Calais are not that large – there were about 4,000- 5,000 before, and now the camp feels a lot emptier – smaller in fact than an average audience size at Brixton Academy. This morning we visited the Care4Calais warehouse, which is a depot that receives, sorts and distributes donations from the UK.
A couple of us did a “How to teach ESOL” training session this morning with some of the volunteers – they will be teaching in the school after the rest of us have to go back home for the next term. This camp shouldn’t be there at all, it is down to the UK government that it exists, and even though conditions seem a bit better with the warmer weather, it is still an appalling place for people to have to live in.
I don’t think this situation can be allowed to continue –and the only moral and humane decision is to let them come here, but until a time when the right decision is made, the residents of Calais camp definitely need our help.