MESSAGE FROM ART REFUGE UK WITH REGARDS THE CLOSURE OF THE CALAIS REFUGEE CAMP, 23.10.16

MESSAGE FROM ART REFUGE UK WITH REGARDS THE CLOSURE OF THE CALAIS REFUGEE CAMP, 23.10.16

Last week, bringing with them their anxieties, fears, anger and frustration, in driving rain and with uncertain instructions as to what to do next, the team once again welcomed both regular visitors and new arrivals into the art therapy spaces in the camp. Friday’s Facebook post provides a rich description of the work, which included “another incredible collection of multicoloured animals; mothers with feeding children; a camel being precariously ridden by a pair of figures; a series of animals with homes on their backs.”

It has been an enormous privilege and humbling experience to stand alongside the hundreds of unaccompanied minors and adults, across cultures, who have either lived for months or passed briefly through the camp and found their way into the open art therapy studios we’ve run alongside Médecins du Monde France and Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) over the past year.

Our thoughts over the next few days are with all the camp’s residents as the eviction process begins, and in the weeks to come. The committed, hardworking NGO’s on the ground will be helping to make this move as smooth and safe as possible. Art Refuge UK will continue to travel from the UK each week to offer support alongside our partner organisations in the most appropriate way we can.