Willa Frej - Volunteers Are Braving Dire Conditions To Provide For Refugees
DUNKIRK, France - Social worker Rita Beesbrouck shares
a tent with five Kurdish teenagers at a refugee camp in northern France, pitched in ankle-deep mud
where rats run rampant. There are two showers for every 3,000 people. Ailments range
from hypothermia to burns from sleeping too close to a fire at night. And
sadness is a silent backdrop to everyday activities.
Beesbrouck said people have suggested she stay in a hotel
while volunteering there. “But I don’t want to,” she said, although she said she does
go home a few nights a week.“I want to live like them. I share my life with them.” Breesbrouck is one of the many workers in the Grande-Synthe
refugee camp now providing assistance to the mainly Iraqi Kurd and Iranian
refugees who are biding their time until they can figure out how to enter the
United Kingdom. She said that when she arrived to the camp from Belgium in
the fall, "people would come to me and say, 'We haven't had food for two
or three days.'"
Six months ago, refugees were "living practically
without any assistance in absolutely deplorable and catastrophic conditions,"
said Samuel Hanryon, press manager for Doctors Without Borders, also known as
Médecins Sans Frontières. But as word about the camp conditions spread, large
organizations and individual volunteers began arriving.
Today, Doctors Without Borders and the French domestic
volunteer organization, Médecins du Monde, or Doctors of the World, treat
refugees at a clinic five days a week for hypothermia, upper-respiratory
problems, hygiene-related issues, burns and wounds sustained from trying to
jump onto moving trucks. They refer people to the hospital when their
diagnoses are more serious.
Elsewhere in the camp, individual volunteers take on a
wide variety of tasks. Samantha Van Urk, a Dutch volunteer, makes
breakfast -- eggs and bread -- with other volunteers in the mornings and then
helps set up tents and clear debris in the afternoons. She also lives in one of
the women's and children's tents to make sure nothing is stolen at night. "I was in Lesbos, Greece for five weeks and I came here
after the new year because I heard from people that it was really bad
here," Van Urk said. "I find it surprising that people are still
happy and entertaining themselves in this camp, in this horrible situation.
Especially at night, they sing and play music."
She said "you sort of get used to" living
conditions in the camp. "There are two showers for 3,000 people, but it's
better than nothing," she added. Other volunteers drop by periodically to deliver essential
items. The refugees' suffering had such an effect on a group of friends
from Antwerp, Belgium, that they began weekly trips to drop off clothes,
sleeping bags and water for the refugees. The group, which receives donations
through Facebook campaigns, also has begun bringing small bags of food items,
such as beans, rice and milk.
"If the government doesn't help, somebody has to do
it," said Marie-Claire Vercauteran. "Once you were here and you saw
the situation, you have to come back. Even animals aren't living like
this." She too noted the strength of the refugees. "It's
amazing how all of the people are keeping their courage," she said.
"Here, you feel like you're doing your thing but when you drive home, the
sadness [piles on]."
Grande-Synthe's city government is actively trying to
improve conditions at the camp but has yet to receive any federal funding. "All of the volunteer organizations are
irreplaceable," Mayor Damien Carême said. However, he laments the lack of coordination. It
"creates a good deal of chaos. Lots of food arrives at the same time and
it's thrown around, lots of clothes are dropped off and they're strewn
about." On a weekday afternoon, piles of discarded food littered the
muddy ground.
Carême said he is working with Doctors Without Borders to
build a new camp on a drier piece of land nearby where people can "have
access to a greater number of showers and toilets as well as make use of more
common spaces to be able to gather, make food, etc." Beyond the services and goods, the volunteers provide emotional
support when things become too hard to bear.
Beesbrouck spends her days tending to a variety of needs
from the refugees, including finding blankets or places to wash their clothes
and making trips to Western Union to retrieve money sent to the refugees. "They need help here. I walk, people come to me
and ask for that and that, every day it's different," she said. Most importantly, she said, she lends her comfort to
others.
"Sometimes they cry and they need a big hug. I take
their hands and I listen to them because for a lot of people here I am like the
mother," Beesbrouck said. "We laugh, we sing," she said, "but after
there are moments of silence, moments where we are sad because we are thinking
about the situation." Beesbrouck said the refugees have become her friends.
"I think it gives hope and courage that there are [volunteers] who really
really love them."
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