This is what happened when I went to volunteer in the Calais ‘Jungle’

It’s easy to forget that Europe is currently in the middle of the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, with over a million refugees arriving on the continent in the past year.

So with my university placement year affording me an excessively long summer holiday – and faced with an opportunity to take out some of my white middle class guilt – I decided to spend a week volunteering in Calais where over 3,500 refugees are stranded in awful conditions.

Boarding the ferry for France, I found myself contemplating the ease with which I was able to cross the channel (the border control guy barely checked my passport) while in Calais – just over 20 miles from our shores – thousands of refugees will routinely risk their lives to make the reverse journey and find sanctuary in the UK. This happens every single day.

Exit the ferry terminal in Calais, drive ten minutes down the motorway, peer over towards the hard shoulder on your right and you’re suddenly confronted with the devastating consequences of Europe’s failure to address its refugee crisis.

The ‘Sudanese’ part of the camp

The ‘Jungle’ – as it is has become colloquially known to volunteers and refugees alike – is a sprawling shantytown that has become a temporary home for thousands of refugees hoping to make it to the UK in search of a better future. Most of these people have fled conflict-ridden nations like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea. Many of them have made perilous journeys while crossing into Europe and some of the less fortunate among them have lost loved ones along the way.

Conditions in the camp are bleak. The inhabitants live in improvised wooden huts and flimsy tents. It’s overcrowded and infested with rubbish, creating an unpleasant stench. There is no proper sanitation, no proper electricity and no proper roads. Fires break out regularly wreaking havoc across the camp. As one of my fellow volunteers noted wryly, in terms of appearance, the Jungle resembles something like a post-apocalyptic version of Glastonbury.

I had to keep reminding myself that I was standing in northern France, one of the more prosperous corners of the globe.

Each night, hundreds of refugees attempt to stow away on trucks, climb on trains in the Eurotunnel or jump on ferries, in order to make it to the UK. They know their chances of succeeding are vanishingly small but that doesn’t seem to deter them.

The camp’s ‘high street’ lined with shops and restaurants

If you look beyond the misery and squalor of the camp however, you will find room for optimism.

The refugees are making the best of their circumstances. In the ‘Jungle’ they’ve built a makeshift Church, a Mosque, school, a children’s library and lots of little restaurants. While I was there, they were even in the process of completing a legal centre to provide advice to asylum seekers. In the depths of desperation, these people carry on with immense dignity, resilience and courage.

Many refugees see the UK as their best chance of a better life

Of course none of this would be possible if it were not for the many volunteers working day-in, day-out with the refugees. Some of the volunteers I met had put everything on hold – their work, their studies, their lives – to come out and help for no pay. Simply because they were moved by the suffering of others.

I volunteered with Help Refugees/ L’Auberge des Migrants, a local charity led by grassroots volunteers that provides basic support for the refugees by distributing food, clothing and other essential items. The refugees rely on the efforts of these charities, as there are no major aid agencies like the UN or Red Cross operating in the ‘Jungle.’

For their part, British and French governments are too busy pointing the finger of blame at one another to offer the refugees any actual material assistance. Besides, doing so would involve conferring legitimacy and recognition upon the camp which is something both countries are unwilling to countenance.

When governments engage in petty politics, it’s left to volunteers to step in and help alleviate the suffering. They serve as a source of inspiration in what is a despairing situation.

Banksy’s mural of Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian Immigrant can be seen on a wall at the edge of the ‘Jungle’

This weekend I will be celebrating the Jewish festival of Passover which commemorates the liberation of the ancient Israelites from brutal enslavement in Egypt to freedom as a nation in their own land.

Families will gather for a special dinner called the Seder during which the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt is retold using a special text called the Haggadah. The Haggadah recounts that, ‘In each and every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as though he actually left Egypt’

On this Seder night I will be reflecting on the journey of those refugees encamped in Calais who seek their own liberation and freedom across the channel, in the Promised Land.